


Rasutosuta - The Lust Star

by jarethsdragon



Category: Overwatch (Video Game), overwatch
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Dubious Consent, F/M, Female Reader, Happy Ending, POV Female Character, Sex Pollen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-25 00:28:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 17
Words: 32,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20367625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jarethsdragon/pseuds/jarethsdragon
Summary: You are on your mission, you are doing well, and then the Reaper’s new weapon comes billowing out in the form of a sparkling gas.  It brings you to your knees and a shadowy figure helps you.  But then back at base, why does Genji seem to be all over the place, talking to you... about Hanzo?





	1. Chapter 1

You had often enjoyed the small meditation garden. It had nine sprawling sakura cherry trees around a small fountain with rectangular bamboo benches in two corners. Small lily flowers bloomed among the small green ovals of lily pads. The low pink blossoms provided a lush feeling of privacy. All in all, it was a soothing place for those who might not want company.

You loved it.

You loved sitting and listening the birds and the soft sounds of the bugs. When the fireflies came out in the spring, it was like watching a sea of sparkling lights. You could come out here to think, to write in your journal, to daydream about things to make your mind relax. No one really came here to speak or have a spirited debate—people were more likely to come here to stargaze or share soft, sweet words.

You were out in the garden now, smiling at the fluttering petals and the newest addition of a wooden shelf that held a few pots holding two bonsai and a branch of orchids. It was a pleasant mystery to consider who had set the shelf up, who tended the meticulous bonsai with their carefully trimmed and shaped branches. After the day you just had, you needed a pleasant and untroubled mystery to relax and staring at the immaculate pots was just the ticket.

You took a deep breath and simply stared at them, listening to the soft evening trills and the crickets chirping. The air was filled with the mild scent of cherry blossoms. It was a secret and gentle thrill to sit here.

The doors whirred and slid open behind you and then closed. You froze in your place, hoping the darkening shadows would hide your form as you stood among the low flowering branches. Nothing would shatter your enjoyment as much as someone insisting on trying to carry on a conversation.

But, instead, there was silence.

It took a bit of imagination to pretend you were still alone, but as the moments passed, it got easier. Finally, you were able to slip slowly to the side of the fountain. The surface rippled with the skating of water bugs. You looked around anxiously and saw only a darker gray form standing in a corner quite a distance away from you. It—whoever it was—seemed disinclined to bother you and you found no particular reason to bother it.

The evening turned to dusk and the shadows grew darker. Fireflies began flickering around and gave everything practically a magic dusting. You giggled at the silly things, content that you would not be disturbed. You’d have to take a movie of the evening sight, share the magic....

The first star appeared overhead and you looked up at it. It glittered in a dim reflection like a distant firefly. So, of course, you were inclined to make a wish. But there seemed to be little to wish for—you had a job you enjoyed, a meaningful career, good friends and something of a social life, a good mentor. You thought of your family—the family you had by blood and the family you had chosen from your friends—and they loved you. You had a good life.

What to wish for, then?

You smiled up at the star. Why not wish for love? The true love that was a warm glow through long years together. The kind of love that had years of laughter and support and quiet dinners and long walks. The kind of love to grow old to.

So, you made your wish. Blew it to the first star and blew a kiss the moon. If you wished hard enough, maybe it would come true and you would have someone to sit with in this garden who would look at you with the same tenderness you saw on Reinhardt’s face when he looked at Ana.

You sighed again and looked at the sky. More stars came out and filled the world with glitter. You once saw a bolt of fabric like that—a deep midnight blue velvet with fine crystals sewn into the cloth. Unfortunately, the evening brought out mosquitos who seemed to enjoy the fine weather as well and they drove you to rise and dust off your clothes and then hurry inside.


	2. Chapter 2

Hanzo watched you from his corner in silence. He had long since perfected the ability to be so still that others would pass him by. He had planned on spending the time just meditating on the solitary evening. His bonsai and orchids were on their shelf off to one side and he had been looking forward to checking them out as he had done every evening since he had joined.

Instead, a lovely distraction had taken his spot. He watched as you sat by the pond, dismissing him from your mind. It was...nice to have even silent company for a change. Usually, he was alone out here for hours. He would go tend the bonsai and gently touch the orchids and go to kneel by the fountain where he could contemplate his life.

Out here, no one would point at him, whisper about his scandalous history. No one would hiss or scuttle out of his way as if he was poisonous. In Japan, he could not even approach a child without someone rushing to separate them. He remembered walking in a park once and a small corgi puppy came bolting towards with its bright red leash flapping behind it. He smiled at the fuzzy ball, kneeling with his hand out. The puppy was unafraid and waddled up to him to nose his fingers with what could only be described as a canine smile on its face. It was stepping closer to sniff his sleeves when he heard a terrified scream. The teenaged girl was pale and shaking as she scrambled to grab the leash. The fuzzy puppy howled and yelped as it was drug away before he had a chance to say or do anything. His bodyguards had snickered slightly, murmuring behind him about how silly the girl was.

This garden was filled with a breeze that sounded like ghosts passing. He was the last, was he not? The last Shimada kumicho. The son of long gone Sojiro and Mariko. The last archer to wield the Storm Bow. The last heir to Hanamura. The last kyudo master of the Shimada. The last....

He was getting foolish in his old age, to be so maudlin and melancholy.

It was a happy surprise to simply be allowed to watch you. He had known few such pleasures since joining Overwatch—watching a beautiful person take innocent joy in a flower filled garden. It was innocent and lighthearted in a way that made even his jaded soul feel lighter.

It was a shame he was so steeped in sin that he could not—dared not—join you.


	3. Chapter 3

You spent a few days running around like mad to prep for your next mission and had no time to visit the garden. You missed the quiet tranquility and found yourself getting more and more tense as if you were getting wound up too tight. Every muscle fiber was tight and aching and ready to snap as if you were a tin toy with someone else spinning the key.

But at last you had a chance to get out there again. It was more lush now, since it had rained a bit this afternoon. The flowers sparkled slightly and nodded in the early evening air. You brought out a small stool this time, along with a worn paperback book. You had even brought your phone and some earbuds, although you were certain that the soundtrack of crickets and evening birds and a rogue frog would relax you more than your music.

You set up the stool and sat down for a long time with a daring heroine and the handsome beau who was secretly the wealthy count who had bought her family’s lands. It was a diverting book for all that it was a bit contrived. Just about anyone would laugh at your terrible choice of literature, but no one was here to witness your little secret.

You were not counting the pages, but had read quite enough that you were enthralled when a mockingbird whizzed past. You looked up to see it land on the little shelf beside the bonsai. It stared at you with beady dark eyes and then seemed to switch its attention to the small, square pot. It pecked twice, but as soon as you shifted, it flew away.

You stretched in a sudden awareness of your stiff joints, and went to investigate. There was a brilliantly colored caterpillar creeping along the edge of the ceramic. You watched it carefully, seeing it twist and curl as it investigated the edge of dirt and smooth china. It must be very confusing and strange to be a caterpillar—to be looking for a tasty leaf and to find this strange place of cool and smooth with dirt on one side and air on the other. You sighed as it began inching along the side of the pot again.

“Oh no—you need to find another plant. Not the bonsai,” you laughed. The little creature lifted itself up as if it was listening to you. You hunted around and found a leaf you guessed was tasty and a small twig. Poking it, you finally got the little creature on the leaf. “There we go. Maybe you’ll be happier somewhere else. Those bonsai look expensive.”

You settled it somewhere against a far wall and went back to your stool. The book was there with a few pink petals from the drifting cherry blossoms. It was a pleasant, fragrant reminder of your peaceful pastime and made you relax more. God—you needed this time to read and soak up the last of the day’s sun and you missed the swish of the doors opening and closing again.

Hanzo sighed in pleasure to see you here again. He had worried that you had divined his presence—known of his illicit observation and the pleasure it gave him—and had been avoiding him. He had no hope of fixing it if you were, of course, but now he wondered if perhaps you were different. Perhaps if you were a new recruit, he would have at least a bit of time to enjoy your company. Even at this difficult distance, he did enjoy even your unintentional companionship.

His dragons buzzed in his head and he felt a sliding around under his skin. “Patience, my friends,” he whispered as softly as he could. “Let me watch just a bit longer.” There was a slight prick along his nerves, as if a curved claw scraped his skin. “Just a little longer.”

He sighed and stayed back against the far wall. Just a little longer and he would slip away before you noticed him. He had dressed carefully—a light hakama of mottled dark grey and similarly colored top with a haori coat in a slightly lighter shade that would blend in with the shadows and corners—so that he was neither too formally overdressed or offensively underdressed. It seemed a bit foolish to take such care when you were likely to walk right past him, but it seemed to be the right thing to do nonetheless.

Hanzo sighed and went back to watching your relaxed lounging. He wanted to come forward, out from behind the flowering branches and twisted trunks. In his imagination, he came forward, walked up to you, and introduced himself. He would ask about the book you were reading and you would tell him something about it. He would nod and smile and ask if you were interested in getting tea or coffee. And then you would say yes and he would proudly take you to get a drink and perhaps a sticky sweet pastry. You would be glad to talk a bit to him and maybe you would laugh when he tried to tell a joke. Or not—since he didn’t often tell them well. Maybe you would agree to give him your number and he would give you his. Then he would take you home and make sure you were safely inside....

Ahh, his imagination could run wild when he was not properly mindful.

It would not go like that. Perhaps you would refuse him because you were not the type to hang out with criminals. You might be afraid of him and his previous... associations. You might not even like tea or coffee. Or you could be afraid of him—a warrior materializing from shades and shadows—or think he was intimidating or stalking you by watching you like this. Worse, you would be ashamed as he fumbled the joke he tried to tell you—embarrassed to be seen with someone as awkward as him. Perhaps you would be disgusted by him or his tattoos or his stature...or something.

He took in a slow breath. The you that lived in his mind was relaxed and he could approach with confidence. Your memory was intertwined with the clean, fresh smell of the blooming cherry trees and the evening garden. The you of his imagination would like him and perhaps be intrigued or even... attracted to his body.

The you of his imagination would want his attention, want him to take the first step and speak. Of course, the imaginary you would also want his touch. That you would want his gentle touch, the hesitant brush of his lips. His mind pictured that in elegant detail—kissing your soft lips and brushing your hair back in gentle touches. He pictured your smile with your cheeks shyly flushed and your eyes blown wide and darkened with passion.

You finished your reading and picked up your stool to go inside. You didn’t seem to even see him in his shadowy corner as he watched you. He stayed desperately still, not daring to even breathe as you left. The door opened and brilliant light flooded out from the building into the darkening garden and then it vanished again as the door closed behind you.

There was a blinding slice of light in front of his eyes as a visual afterthought. He waited for a few minutes to be sure that he would be alone, and then moved forward to the same spot you had been in. It was an imaginary meeting, a cool and distant and psychic brush of familiarity in his thoughts if nothing else happened.

He shuddered in his clothes, wishing he could shed the worn smooth fabric and feel the evening air touch his skin. At his home—at Hanamura—he had a completely private garden and often could shed his clothes and kneel on the grass and feel the breezes kiss his skin. In the darkest of nights of summer, he could even strip past the point of modesty and imagine a lover of moonlight stroking his body.

His imaginary consort now had your face and form and features. Hanzo felt his body harden and fine shivers race along his skin in the most delicate of caresses. It seemed as if even his hair was rising up with the prickles on his overeager skin. When he moved slightly, raising his arms and feeling a breeze wriggle into the simple folds of his clothing, it was a pleasuring ghost of what he truly wanted.

And he wanted.

Hanzo had lived almost as a monk as he had wandered in Japan after Genji’s death. Women were not interested in a man wandering the roads with no prospects and a suspiciously elaborate tattoo. Worse yet, a man who never took off his shirt who must therefore have something to hide. Ten years had passed as he walked and hitchhiked and kept seeing Japan not through the smoked window of a limousine or from behind bodyguards and thugs but with his own eyes. It was a country that he had never seen—people in parks not paying him any particular attention, small restaurants that charged a nominal fee for plain food, shelters for homeless or indigent people where the food was bland and the futons thin and lumpy, temples and fairs that were open to all rather than exclusively a small population of wealthy benefactors. Plain, ordinary things that were foreign to him—coin laundromats and public restrooms and trains crowded with people and pushcarts of food and small grocery stores that were open all night—seemed initially remarkable in their novelty and then bittersweet because they reminded him repeatedly of how easy his life had been.

Now there was an immense gulf between him and everyone he met. His past life formed a high wall that no one else but Genji could or would cross. A high wall and a trench he had dug himself with every foul crime he had committed. He accepted it, was reconciled that he would likely be alone a great deal of time. He carefully packed up the desires and longing dreams of family and children and love—things any man might want—and stowed them away so that he could focus on duty and the mission instead.

Unfortunately, you had reignited those found dreams, unpacked them, tossed them to the wind and there was no recapturing them. You lived now in those dreams and in his head. He had not even spoken to you—not directly—but he heard your voice in his head anyway. You were there, stroking his skin, kissing his mouth, palming his cock, whispering in his ear and smiling at him. You were even with him in spirit when he would surreptitiously summon his dragons and let them run about with their wild prancing in the gardens and your imaginary laugh at their antics made him smile.

He let his imagination run wild as the dragons slid away from him and began to roam freely and pounce on the small bugs and night creatures. They leapt away in dim glows like weasels or ferrets. Every so often, one or the other would rear up and leap, making the flowers and grass shake.

Would you go out with him? Would you willingly go with him, be alone with him and speak to him? Would you listen to him at all or would you turn away and flee from him? Would you be repelled by who he was and who he had been, or would you consider that he might be a changed man?


	4. Chapter 4

You spent some time each evening in the gardens, reading or doodling or something. The cherry blossoms began shedding their pink petals. Several times you came inside with little petals tangled in your hair and clinging to your clothes and skin. It gave you a slightly angelic look, an innocent and untouched look that made you take a rare selfie that you were pleased enough with that you posted it to your social media page. You were not very popular online—only a few followers who were mostly family and high school friends—and felt safe posting the picture.

A ding a short time later announced that someone liked your picture.

That was interesting. Perhaps your BFF has liked it. You looked at the page again and saw the little star and the short, anonymous comment below your picture.

“It is a good look for you.”

The username was new and unfamiliar to you. Maybe one of your batty relatives had given up trying to remember their password again and set up yet another new user account. You smirked at it, typed your thanks.

There was a small pause and then a smile emoticon. Then nothing else.

How strange. Usually when someone managed to get a hold of you, they talked to you for hours about all the local gossip. They would certainly at least ask how you were, what you were doing now. Unsettled, you clicked your profile picture and checked your privacy settings.

So that was it. New security settings had been added and now new pictures were set to public release. You rolled your eyes and reset all the profile settings. Then you switched the image to private and viewed by your contact list of friends and family only. What a pain—to have to switch everything each time the site upgraded.

Still, it made you wonder, who this new admirer was.

You tried to guess. Maybe it was someone that you were newly acquainted with. Perhaps a long lost friend you had forgotten. Maybe an old boyfriend.

Still, it was a delightful fizz inside you that someone liked your picture. It would not ever win a beauty contest but it was one of the better pictures your phone had taken. You felt warm inside for the whole night—even when you got in your favorite ratty pajamas and into bed. You snuggled down into the sheets thinking about it and tried to figure out who it might have been.

Your first thought was it was some creep you passed somewhere. Or maybe some kind of flaky weird random chat match—they popped up from time to time on every platform. Usually you’d get either a quirky advertisement for something like hybrid tomato plants or oil changes or some kind of class action lawsuit for something you had never heard of. Or you’d get some sexist trash message asking for nude pictures in gutter talk.

Finally you were relaxed enough to let your mind wander. Perhaps it was someone on base. There were many agents—many men—on base that you wouldn’t mind looking at your picture. But who would be your favorite? The large cowboy? No—he was all Southern drawl and honey charm, but he was well known to flit from liaison to liaison and bed to bed. Soldier 76 was huge and all muscles and protocol and you couldn’t picture him unwinding enough to send an anonymous comment. Lucio would totally leave a comment, but he’d be sure to sign it with his trademark. The crusader was devoted to Ana and wouldn’t leave a comment that was in any way suggestive. Zenyatta just wouldn’t. Which left who?

You were sleepy now. You couldn’t immediately think who else might even be interested. A sea of shifting faces went drifting through your head, eyes changing colors and noses changing shapes and jaws shifting and hair growing or shifting or changing colors. It was a dizzying array of faces and races and identities that whirled through you as you went to sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

The picture and your anonymous admirer were far from your mind two weeks later. Talon operatives had been cornered in a small ghost town just south of the Mexican border. La Ciudad Perdida had been founded during the Mexico/U.S. immigration conflicts of 2043, but had died as people found the climate and dessert terrain inhospitable (at best) and the attempts to bore wells and find water were futile. New people didn’t ever stay long and it simply died like many other small towns. Unfortunately, the small houses and few commercial buildings with their rickety electric lines and solar farm only attracted drug runners and thieves and coyotes who were moving people around like cattle. So it was no surprise that Talon had moved in.

You were a sniper—one of a collection of faceless and anonymous people who supported the mission—perched on top of a nearby ridge south of town. In the moonlight, you were a collection of spooks and spirits who were supposed to shoot and vanish. And you were fantastic at your job.

The Shimada brothers were in charge of your team. The cyber ninja could vanish in a spotlight in spite of the lights all over his shiny metal body armor. Sometimes you only knew he was on the field because of the occasional tenor voice on the com link. The archer didn’t talk most of the time and seemed to choose to simply vanish and fire his almost silent weapon without comment.

You stared at the retreating Talon forces through your scope. The intelligence had been good—this time, at least—and you saw the vague form of Widowmaker and Reaper begin running to their hidden transports. 76 appeared and drove them south out of town and away from the covered vehicles. The explosions as 76 hit them with his pulse rifle were brilliant with plumes of fire and smoke.

You heard the command and your team rose to surround the two fugitives. Widowmaker broke off to the east, but Reaper kept advancing towards your team. You ducked out behind a huge cactus and took aim, ready to take out his kneecap, but just as your finger squeezed the trigger, he became mist and vanished.

The com link was filled with curses as half the team went to follow the woman and the other half tried to figure out where the big man went. You kept scanning the terrain, desperate to bring him down.

Then there was a scream.

Reaper materialized for just a half second behind an agent and then there was another scream. You no sooner got his location in your sights than there was another scream. Finally, you managed to get his legendary mask in sight as it materialized. Firing, you cursed softly as the bullet ricocheted wildly on a shadowy rock as he dematerialized into his wraith form just long enough.

The mask turned towards you and he vanished again.

“Shit! He’s made me,” you cursed as you scrambled to get to a new location.

“Indeed,” purred a deep voice from behind you.

Time slowed to a crawl as you looked over your shoulder. Reaper reached out with a heavily gauntlet and ripped off your mask. It flew over the edge of the ridge with a whistle as he grabbed you.

“Idiota,” he hissed as he jerked the rifle away to point at some other target. It was strapped to you and while he might not be able to take it away, it meant that he had you almost tied to him. His mask dipped slightly and his hand tugged on your close fitting uniform. “Pero un tonto bonito.” He sighed and slapped you hard. Abruptly, he shouted, “I’ve got one of your agents! Stand down now or she dies.”

There was a crackle and your head spun as you heard the command to stand down. There was a trickle of blood at your lip as he crushed your body against his. You tugged and struggled, but you were outmatched next to his overwhelming strength.

“Let me go,” you hissed.

He only laughed and jabbed his rifle into your side. “You don’t have a chance. Just walk—or die.”

He brought you down the ridge and you gasped as his arm wrapped around your neck. You could dizzily see the shadows of other agents trying to maneuver for position. Honestly, it was more than distracting that his hips kept pressing against you as he drug you along.

76’s coarse voice came over the comms. “Where’s he even going?”

He must have heard that, because he laughed in your ear. “Wouldn’t he like to know, hermosa?”

Then he stopped. You felt him wriggle, reach for something and you felt one of the huge bulb shaped things strapped to him move. You whined as you pictured a grenade, a bomb, but you couldn’t see it.

Your boot caught on a hole or something—some hard and steep corner—and you felt your ankle wrench. He laughed again, and you heard a metallic ping. He curled around you and hissed in your ear, “Don’t worry, mascota. I’ll find you again.”

With a lewd grinding of his hips against you, he disappeared. You saw the round shape fall to the ground with you. It exploded and you saw a thick gas whisper out in puffy, dark clouds that subtly sparkled. It filled your lungs and you coughed and wheezed. The icky stuff seemed to coat your lungs as you collapsed.

“Where did he go?” 76 growled and you weren’t able to say as you coughed again. “What’s going on?”

Lights wove around and someone shouted, “Here, sir!”

The gas was thinning and you saw friendly green lights coming closer. They dipped and you vaguely saw the edge of what appeared to be a deep hole. Genji’s voice crackled, “There is a deep hole here. Probably a small entry to some kind of cavern below.”

76 cursed again and you were almost faint as they tried to dissipate the gas. Thank goodness you were outside and the just gas went up and away. “Anyone see what that was?”

Abruptly there was an explosion and you vaguely saw more fire and smoke and sparks as one of the drop ships exploded. A small craft lifted off and vanished just behind it. The teams scrambled—trying to figure out what to do—and gathered just outside the empty town.

There was no way to get the whole team evacuated without a second drop ship. Everyone sort of stared at each other as the commander and 76 argued in low growls about what to do. Honestly, you felt hot and sweaty and sticky and didn’t care as you shivered at the edge of the crowd.

From behind you, you heard a tenor voice speaking in soft tones. The language was fast and unfamiliar and then a deeper baritone replied. You shuddered inexplicably and glanced over your shoulder. The cyborg was standing behind you, his lights turned off and you could faintly see his faceplate in his hand. Just a half step behind him was the shadowy form of the stern faced archer.

They seemed to notice you at the same moment and nodded in almost perfect unison. Hanzo took a half step forward and murmured again, his free hand twisting and flicking in some kind of gesture that made the ninja grunt sourly and shrug before nodding and putting back his faceplate.

Then it was like you didn’t exist. They walked past you to where 76 was still arguing and stood there. The pilot on the remaining drop ship turned on the engine and suddenly there was another explosion as the engine blew up. You could practically hear Reaper and Windowmaker laughing as the beleaguered pilot was drug out of the smoking wreckage. Then 76 and the commander began arguing again. For several minutes you listened and then Genji spoke up.

“We can go to the town since it is all but abandoned. It will not be comfortable, but there used to be a hotel.” His tone was light and reasonable. “We will be able to wait it out until reinforcements come.”

Your voice was lost in the chorus of agreement. It was impossible to tell whether or not that moved the decision in any way, but at least they all were willing to let the team move in to the abandoned hotel and surrounding buildings for a few hours—provided there were watches posted and everyone took turns keeping watch. Everyone groaned but agreed wearily.

You staggered to your room—a top floor, corner room that was as far from the stairs as possible. Nothing worked—the solar farm apparently died when the population fled and there was no one to maintain it—but the view of the stars between the few boards over the window was beyond beautiful and almost worth the trip. No water meant you vaguely swirled some water from your canteen in your mouth and called yourself clean enough to sit on the bed and unwrap your mylar emergency sleeping bag.

Hell, it was hot, though. Not the unpleasant humidity of some places but straight up turn-you-to-a-raisin hot. You had a strange feeling—as if someone was going to attack you—but was no one else and you could hear boots on the roof above you and the footsteps in the hallway outside your door.

It was so, so, so hot. No one else was in the room and every inch of your clothing smelled of sweat and gunpowder and pulse ammunition and a smell that made you think of tumbleweeds. So hot. So hot you were dizzy with it.

You peeled off your armor, relieved at once. But the sudden lack of weight only made you even more aware of the dripping sweat that saturated your uniform. Blindly, you peeled off the uniform, sighing happily as the dry air hit your prickly skin. Every piece felt heavy and was obscenely soaked with sweat.

Finally, you were down to the bare minimum—a bra and panties that were worn comfortable and never matched anything in the first place—and crawled into the mylar bag. You couldn’t even laugh—you looked like a baked potato or campfire dinner—as you tried to get even a bit comfortable. The only relief was to flap the mylar and generate a slight breeze.

Then you realized your underwear was soaking. Like really creepy slick. Blushing, you pulled them down in the bag and kicked them off. The only thing that could possibly be more embarrassing was how freakishly good it felt to run you hands down your skin. You did it again, rubbing furiously as the feelings kept building. It was a blind, clumsy effort—but it felt amazingly good to take off your bra and toss it aside and begin rubbing your breasts and between your thighs. Hesitantly, you stroked your slick core and gasped at the rippling tingles it caused. Your climax was sudden and almost inhuman. It made stars burst behind your eyes and you all but collapsed in your sleeping bag, relieved that at last you felt cool and boneless and so pathetically weak you were practically asleep.

The next thing you knew, there was a soft sound. You barely opened your eyes. The feverish feeling was making you feel weak and helpless. You couldn’t hardly move and your mouth feet like it was filled with sawdust. And the fever seemed worse now....

There was a soft squeak—the boards in the floor and walls were thin and made all kinds of sounds—and your gritty eyes couldn’t even focus on the shadows in the room. You tossed your head enough to get the hair out of your eyes. You whimpered, smelling a deep, dusty odor of old earth—the smell of a stone mausoleum—and turned slightly to see what you could by the starlight.

The white mask nodded at you.

Immediately a heavily gauntleted hand covered your mouth. You couldn’t move or scream as you heard the sound of leather being unfastened and saw the flash of a knife. He flashed the blade and it ripped a small hole in your bag. In the bag, you couldn’t struggle at all—just push the mylar around helplessly. He—the Reaper—tugged the bag and pushed your head down. Your fever couldn’t be higher as he began to draw the bag closed over your head and you couldn’t find the hole he cut.

Then there was a soft, whistle and a thunk and your heard a bass voice curse in Spanish. Then you felt a whoosh of mylar rippling and the tied up bag was loosened. Terror mixed with the skin tingling fever as the bag was pulled down after all. And dammit, your skin was absolutely crawling with jittery, heavy tingles that made your breath catch and the slick down your legs feel electric.

Then a rough hand touched your head, pushing your sweaty hair off your brow. The heavenly sound of a wordless baritone croon and the cool skin touching you were deliriously delicious. You closed your eyes and moaned, suddenly not even minding that those hands were ripping the mylar—your sole covering—off of you.

Exposed to the dry air, you twitched as those hands gently squeezed your breasts. You would have moaned, but you had no voice. There was a noise as you felt the cool hands leave you, shuffling to bring out something you couldn’t see in the heavy shadows. The hands moved and you felt a slender stem presses to your lips. A sharp, bittersweet liquid filled your mouth and tingled as you swallowed it.

The stem was pulled away and you moaned at the loss. But the hands—large and rough and cool—came back to run down your sides, leaving shivers in their wake. They were unexpectedly gentle as they stroked down your hips to go between your thighs. There the fingers pushed slightly until you spread out. Then they dipped into your core, making you close your eyes with a blissful gasp.

The fingers were tender as the first fingertip went inside. It wiggled softly, barely vibrating and you couldn’t help but groan. You felt so sticky, so sweaty and so... everything. Your hips pushed up and down, desperate for the sudden rush of feeling filling you. His fingers kept going, deeper and harder until it burst into you with shuddering sparks.

You were gaping, gasping as you tried to figure out what was happening. This had to be a fever dream—the sort of aching and twisted one that would leave you in a breathless ball and staggering for medicine. But you couldn’t think whether this was a nightmare or a dream. There was no trace of the frightening mask now, only the cool, strong hands stroking the beads of perspiration off your body.

“So... hot,” you whimpered as the hands helped you get comfortable and stretched out.

The bottle came back and poured a little more of the liquid down your throat. Then it pulled back and small dribbles of tingling cool liquid hit your breasts and belly. It was shocking in its way because it tingled and was so cooling it seemed to be freezing the heat from the room as the fingers smeared it lightly over you.

Then, there was a shift in the rickety bed and a deafening shriek from the wobbly bed frame. A warm bulk settled between your legs and nudged you back down. It was so confusing that it seemed to be both radiating cool and burning heat. But every fiber of your body reached for that confusing mix and curled around it.

You felt the strength, the glide of thick muscles under skin. You were so befuddled you were glad to feel this—even in a dream—and began to touch and stroke in return. You were spread wide without a problem, glad to feel the intrusion into the hottest part of your body. You bit your lip and groaned to feel the first spasms of pleasure. The midnight shadowed form rocked forward and pulled your hips. The heat overcame you almost instantly and you whined to feel your body tighten and cum.

You collapsed, gradually laying back down as strong hands helped. If it hadn’t been for the unbearable tickling in your core, you might have fallen asleep then and there. Your body clenched though, and somehow you were reluctant to loosen your hold on the shadowy form. It curled over you though and did not vanish as your dreams were wont to do.

Instead, it rolled and the deep thrust curled your toes. It was beyond you to even scream as the rocking filled you. The fullness was just what you needed, the fever heat began building again, forcing you to hold on to the shapely muscles. In fact, you were rocking, pushing up as hard as you could to drive it into your hunger.

It collapsed something inside, though. Whether this was a feverish dream or not, you were determined to enjoy this until the last moment. You lapped at skin that was smooth and occasionally brushed with short, coarse hair. You suckled roughly calloused fingers and thrust wildly until you were breathless and whimpering. It only made the feeling sweet, filling you and pushing out thought. Then you came again.

Instantly, there was a groan and a retreat. It was so fast that you were dizzy and almost tumbled from the bed. You fumbled, looking for shadows, but failed to find what you needed. A harsh panting filled the room, as if someone had run for miles. You rolled your head towards it, but there was only an indistinct bluish glow that faded into darkness like it was running from you.

“P-p-p-please....” It was the only word you could manage with the building heat in your veins and the parchment rasp of your throat. You wanted to say more, but there was nothing in you left.

Sill, you were relieved to hear the panting end with a sharp snort. The shape unfurled and returned, settling between your legs. The moist warmth of a tongue pressed between your legs, returning a blaze of heat inside you. It pressed lightly on your belly and you squirmed. The shadowed form danced fingers and tongue and heat all over you, waiting for the heat to build. Then, as you thrashed and writhed and thought the fever wouldn’t end, then there was the deft tongue pushed inside you. It curled and twisted until it found the places that made your body spasm.

Which led to a lengthy exploration where those fingers and that tongue and lips and that cock mapped out exactly where each spot was that made you whine and jerk. It must be a fanciful dream that the cock was always hard, the hands strong and sure and deft and there was endless bliss. You lost count of the number of times you came undone in dizzying and feverish pleasure. You kept going far past anything you knew and you were too wrecked to care. Exhaustion did claim you eventually. You fell asleep to the sound of a growling panting off in the darkness somewhere, like a large guard dog to protect you from your nightmares.


	6. Chapter 6

Dawn came inevitably and you awoke alone in your room, you dressed and staggered out with the rest of your team. The drop ships landed pretty much in the shadow of the wreckage of the other ones. A team of Omnics disembarked and began taking apart the wreckage for scrap and parts. 76 began herding the everyone else on board.

Apparently everyone had a bad night and you were far from the only one groaning as you sat down. Almost instantly, people began leaning this way and that and trying to get back to sleep. You did the same, curling in the corner and stuffing your utility pouch under your head and getting some sleep.

Hanzo crept back to the hotel to try to find some rest. Genji had been on watch most of the night and they had volunteered to stay behind and report back with the Omnic crew. Genji was probably back asleep even though he had appeared long enough to be recognized at roll call since he had done an extra shift to cover Hanzo’s absence.

Nothing could stop him from getting some sleep. The replacement forces would be busy for some time and were keeping watch in case Reaper or Talon forces returned. A pair of them nodded as he slid through the shallow shadows and went to the hotel. Every other building was just about to collapse—the hotel was the newest building out of all of them—and the slender, metal engineers buzzed around as they tried to temporarily restore power so they could continue to do their jobs throughout the day.

He was closing the rickety door to the lobby when all of the lights burst on. A rusty fan whirred into life and fluorescent lights blinked and buzzed. Genji came down the hallway in a weary stagger with a handful of wires and a pair of huge, cold water bottles. “Hell of a night, anija.”

Hanzo nodded, accepting the water bottle his brother offered. “It is over.”

Genji grinned wolfishly. “Is that a good thing or bad thing?”

“It... it is over,” Hanzo murmured. 

Genji only chuckled. “The fans in the rooms will make it almost comfortable. In a few hours, we’ll have a small supply of running water—maybe. If the well is not completely dry and the pipes not blocked....”

Hanzo nodded. “In a few hours we will leave and be done. But I am spent....”

“Yeah... I’ll bet.” Genji smirked and they turned down the hallway towards the rooms. “So... what happened?”

Hanzo glanced nervously around, grimacing as an Omnic walked into the lobby to drop an Overwatch labeled supply box and then turned to leave. His voice went unbearably soft—a whisper over the dusty, dry floorboards—as he replied, “There is little left to tell. You and I saw the Karitoru, how he held her and the gas bomb.”

“Sure.”

“It is the same.”

The cyborg whistled in shock. “I thought we had destroyed all of it. That we had... destroyed the lab, the canisters—even the scientist team. It was supposed to all be gone.”

Hanzo nodded, his head dropping. The Shimada-gumi had been the primary supplier in Japan—one of the only ones supplying it internationally as well. It had been developed, paid for, by the yakuza. It was the result of an unheard of alliance between the three oldest yakuza clans—the Shimada, the Karischi, and the Ryuhana—and it had taken the Japanese underworld by storm. In recorded history, there had never been such an alliance between clans and such cooperation on a single project. 

Each of the three clans—their kumichos and their lieutenants—had known the way the winds were blowing. International organized crime task forces had been steadily picking off the smaller gangs, the newer clans without the benefits of decades of savings. Overwatch was the worst, coming into areas that police forces didn’t and doing things they wouldn’t before vanishing back to their bases behind thick cloaks of treaties and international alliances. It was harder and harder to get into businesses and to set up fear and cooperative respect. Without that, the money stopped flowing entirely in some areas.

So, they had gotten together in an unprecedented way. They had agreed that the key to reestablishing their chokehold was to work together to create a brand new revenue stream. Everyone dealt in money, gambling, cocaine and drugs, porn, prostitution and occasionally for those who would be satisfied with nothing less—slavery. Everyone did it all, they agreed, and what did that get the Yamaguchi? The Hasu gang? So, they needed something new—something different—that everyone would want, that everyone would pay for. To survive, they needed to work together to make it work and to carefully control it so that no one would be able to break the stream of income. And after literally months of meetings and negotiations, they had made the plans and decided on the disbursements.

It was the height of irony that Shimada Sojiro had been actively plotting to overthrow the other two when he died—while they plotted to overthrow him—and had been weakening the alliance anyway. Hanzo had tried to shore up the fragile alliance, to restore the balance of the three clans, but seeing the effects of the Rasutosuta had horrified him and it had become harder and harder to encourage its spread. When he had finally gotten “his head on straight”, as the irritating gaijin McCree-san had put it, and joined Overwatch, he had immediately been put on the task force to stop them and had made Rasutosuta his first priority. They had gone to every lab, every delivery point, every secret place and to every dealer to wipe out every source, every canister and every copy of the formulation process.

They had tried everything, traced every lead relentlessly. They had spent thousands of hours just figuring out a way to safely dispose of the gas. More hundreds of thousands of hours were spent trying to counter the effects and to treat those who were affected—the strung out druggies, the addicts who were dying after two or three exposures because it was that addictive. Every trace of Rasutosuta was to be destroyed, to prevent anyone from being destroyed by the unholy evil his clan—he—had wrought. When he had finally tracked down the final dealer—a man on a tiny island who held a hundred or more prisoner for the sexual amusement of his guests and who had stockpiled three canisters against the coming bans and raids—did he finally breathe easily. 

Only to find that it was not over. That someone, somehow, had found something they had missed. That somehow the madman Reaper had it, had weaponized it into a small grenade the size of a salt shaker instead of a wheeled canister that only dispensed through a gas mask after coins or a credit card swipe. That it was something—something else—he had failed to finish.

Then to find it had harmed... you.

He staggered to the first floor room he had been assigned. Even when he got laid down on the floor of the empty room, he couldn’t find peace. He had been slinking behind the team, clinging to the shadows, when he saw Reaper holding you. His arrow had been on the string, waiting for the shot, when he saw the little black thing fall. Then the gas had hissed out, filling the air with its distinctive dark gas that seemed alive with a brief glitter of sparkles like stars.

That was why they had called it “Rasutosuta”—“lust star”.

He hadn’t even paid attention to the dark wraith as it poured into the crack of the rock in the ground. The sight of the sparkling gas had made him shiver, frozen to the core as you had dropped to your knees and coughed and sputtered. It had sent a rush of painfully burning adrenaline flooding him and making him even more sick to his stomach. He had never wanted to do that to anyone ever again, but most especially not to you.

Faces danced behind his eyelids. The small, pinched faces of the lab rats and later, the human tests. The greedy faces of the yakuza who were delighted to develop such terrible stuff. The police who walked right past the makeshift dens and dispensaries because they wanted the product as much as anyone else.

But most of all, his dark heart saw the fading faces of the users turning to addicts. The first thing the alliance did was to release small “supplements” in the form of brief tastes of the Rasutosuta to select industries and populations. The porn market picked it up almost before they were ready—the smoke and sparkles pleasantly theatrical and the effects of unending sexual arousal made for a few good movies and pictures. Of course, the porn market was so invested not in sex, but in domination and violence, that it was used more off-camera than on because it meant that partners couldn’t say no to whatever was done to them.

Next came rich business men—the politicians and lawyers and princes and various untouchables. The men who would give them clout to avoid prosecution and legal issues. Sometimes women, too—dirty, disgusting women who were as foul as the men in their particular tastes. They would either pay for a dealer to come to them or would simply drag their latest conquest, drop money into the tank and help hold the mask over the face for seven seconds and then wander away to a car where they would rush to somewhere else for hours of forced ecstasy.

Then it became common. It was a “supplement” for the rich and an illegal addiction for the poor. Then it became an uninteresting thing—as common as coke or marijuana. Then the poor craved it. A few hours of blissful forgetfulness in the arms of whoever they could trick or bully or beat or cajole or blackmail to put the mask on. Old men used it to keep up with their young trophy wives. Ugly men drug up women of all kinds. The young kept trying to get others to try it to have their conquests or one night stands.

Unfortunately, it was almost too good. For one or two hours of delight in a twenty four to forty eight hour period, the seven seconds exposure was plenty and the worst effect was mild dehydration and hunger. It was the souls who would come back for more and more as the effects wore off that they were aiming for. The money was in repeat business, after all. The pimps who came through with twenty girls three times a night each—they paid in thousands—they were the first ones that saw the repeated effects, the addictions and the deaths.

The first thing was that the few hours of intense desire. Literally, there was nothing more important during those hours than sexual satisfaction. The drive to satisfy that hunger would override any other consideration. Repeated exposures would result in dehydration, malnutrition. Then came anorexia—killing an appetite regularly and being unable to stop from fucking anything in the world—and then a chemical depression because nothing natural could replicate the feeling of repeating orgasms. Then, as dependence grew, sexual impotence and then cardiac failures because the human body was simply not meant to be in a sexual peak for hours.

He had volunteered for first watch and stationed himself above your room with Genji. He wanted to be wrong. He wanted to be wrong about the gas. He wanted to be wrong and spare you the debasement and humiliation of the gas. The thought of you being so desperate and needy in this filthy and desolate place, whimpering and dragging yourself from room to room and throwing yourself at agent after agent until someone took you up on it. Genji had been on watch with him, nodding when Hanzo had explained and turning a blind eye as he had climbed from the roof to your window where the boards were loose enough he could squeeze in.

The Reaper had been in there, blithely taking advantage of your helplessness and stuffing you into your emergency mylar sleeping bag like a potato being wrapped in foil. There was no telling where Reaper had come in—the ventilation system, the many holes in the walls—but there was no mistaking what he was doing, and Hanzo had attacked without mercy. Unfortunately, Reaper’s wraith form only vanished again.

Then he had been alone with you. What was he to do? You barely were able to understand what you needed. And you had barely even spoken to him beyond the polite greetings you gave everyone. If you even knew he existed, that is. So, though he damned the coming morning, he was determined to fulfill your desperation and sate your needs. And because this was his sin, he was determined to take no pleasure in it and punish himself by denying his own pleasure.

His body had ached, making him blind with the agony building in his throbbing cock. He had pulled away when he could, to force himself to calm down and to push back the need to claim you, to drive his body into your unwilling one and pour his seed in so deep you would never escape him.

He had set his own hell.

He tried to give you sparing sips of the sake he carried with him. It would ease your pain, slow your heart and hopefully make this easier. He had smeared some on your body to cool and refresh your skin—arousal would only make the dehydrating heat worse—and prayed it was enough to grant you some form of relief. As the hours had progressed, he had switched the sake for his scant supply of water, but you were far too gone to notice. And when you finally were able to sleep, he had watched for a bit too long to be sure you were fine and then crept back the way he had come.

It was his joy to have felt your caress, to have felt your raging climax. It was bliss to have heard your little whines and the sound of your panting. And it was his sin that had poisoned it all before he had ever seen you in the garden.


	7. Chapter 7

Mercy checked you out as soon as you got to base. You were dehydrated and bruised and exhausted. You were allowed to shower and put on a hospital gown with a cartoon mouse dancing all along the hem and then she put you on the bed, stuck a needle in your arm and gave you a massive IV along with a stack of individually packed juices and a paper cup with vitamin pills in it. You didn’t even need help to get some sleep, though she offered it.

Three days later, after she had done every test known to medical science, she decided you were healthy and recovered. She sent you home with a medical excuse to stay off duty for a week and rest. So, you had a week to sleep, drink water, eat and watch television.

By the end of the second day, you were bored spitless.

So, you wandered back to the garden. The cherry blossoms had lost their lush, pink glory and the petals were largely gone. Still, it was soothing to be here in the evening air and see the familiar fountain and sounds were gentle. You had your stool and a book that you had been meaning to read, as well as a bottle of water, and settled back to relax.

At least, you had planned it that way on your head.

Instead, you opened the door and found the archer standing right where you wanted to put your stool. He wore only his loose hakama—his feet were lost in the grass—and he held his top in his hand. The breeze teased his loose long hair, making it ripple across his shoulders. The sun made his skin gleam and the tattoo on his shoulder and arm seemed dramatically darker.

You scowled and were about to leave when you heard him say, “I know you are there—you may as well come out.”

You bit your lip and slunk in, walking over to the bonsai and orchids. The plants were in perfect condition, but you checked anyway. He didn’t turn, didn’t seem to move as you pottered in a loose circle around him and away from his stern and steely gaze. His stillness was hypnotic as you tried to avoid attracting his attention.

Finally, you told yourself that you were being silly and drug your feet up towards the fountain. You told yourself that you didn’t need to worry and things were fine and finally you jerked the stool to unfold it.

Hanzo finally turned towards you and it was almost comical to see his face fall into sudden shock. He gaped, all but leaping away as you settled the legs so that it wouldn’t pitch you into the dirt. As you turned to sit down, he back pedaled and fumbled with the traditional looking top.

“Umm...hey,” you muttered, staring at him.

He yelped, flushed and crossed his arms over his body in an almost comical attitude of modesty. His face was still pale as he struggled to shove his arms into the jacket without revealing any more skin. “I had thought that you... Waiting for...Genji and I—. I mean—I assumed.... You... were Gen—, no.”

You frowned as he babbled and finally wrestled the jacket over his body. He tucked it comically tight around his body with an impatient sound and burbled an apology—at least, you thought it was an apology—before bolting clumsily to the door.

Which left you alone with your thoughts. The crazy, heated thoughts that surely had to be a feverish dream. Those thoughts roiled and boiled until you were gritting your teeth, clenching your jaw and had a headache. So, it was not surprising when you got fed up and got your stuff together to go back inside.


	8. Chapter 8

Hanzo growled as he all but ran down the hallway. What a fool he had made of himself! He had been enjoying the cool breezes on his face and, since no one else usually came to this garden this time of day, he had peeled off the sweaty, sticky top that he wore during sparring and training. It was almost instant bliss to feel the rush of a breeze all up and down his arms.

He had arranged to meet Genji there, too. They so rarely had time to meditate together or to even spend time drinking and talking. In Japan, hardly a day went by that they didn’t meet for at least a few minutes. Here, there were always duties and responsibilities and—for Genji—women. Lots of women. As usual, Genji defied standards and protocols and, it seemed, even the laws of statistics with the number of women crowding him.

His brother had seen him, was no stranger to his appearance. Of course not! Their father had taken them to onsens and they had gone swimming together. The large and ornate tattoos were signals of power and respect in their home country. So, even expecting Genji, he had dared to pull off the clothing he could to feel the cleansing caress of air.

Why for the love of dragons did it have to be you coming to the garden right then?

He would have accepted anyone else! Anyone else would have been better! The commanders! 76! The imposing Reinhardt. Even Zenyatta would have been better. The men would have merely nodded or coughed slightly. 76 never went unclothed and would have simply grunted to get dressed. Zenyatta would have offered some musical, metallic observation and been icily calm as he covered up.

But no, it was you.

And rather than a suave and witty comment, followed by a compliment and an offer for a drink, he had stammered like a witless idiot and posed like a coyly startled geisha. There was no worse impression he could even think of making, no way to recover from that graceless babbling. You likely thought him an idiot and a pervert after that shockingly bad display.

He groaned and rubbed his head. Everything felt flushed and embarrassed and cold. He leaned against the wall, fruitlessly praying for guidance and hearing nothing. What could possibly be worse than this?

“Anija!” Genji called from down the hall. Hanzo rubbed his eyes and watched as the cyborg ninja strolled up. “What’s going on?”

Hanzo snorted and shrugged, “Nothing.”

He cocked his head and smirked knowingly. “Are you sure? You look... stressed.”

“It’s nothing.”

“You sure? You sound really strained. Is the garden closed? Is that why you’re out here?”

Hanzo glanced around anxiously and saw no one. Grabbing his brother’s shoulder, he drug Genji away from the garden and down a side hallway. “It is nothing. We will... not go outside. We will go do something else.”

Genji grinned wickedly and tried to peer around his brother. “Why?” Hanzo set his mouth in a mutinous bulldog expression. “Is it a girl—?!”

“No!”

“Oh, you’re turning red! I’ll bet it is a girl.” He shoulder and threw his weight to evade his brother, only to be blocked and all but slammed against a wall. He shrugged his metal shoulders and laughed. With a grin, he winked and snorted, “Unless it’s a guy! Is he cute—?!”

Hanzo growled and shoved Genji again. His brother only hit with wall with a mechanical crunch and then seemed to bounce back with a whir of servos and gears. “I forbid you—!”

“So is it a girl? Or a boy?” Genji laughed as Hanzo turned even more red. “Both?”

Hanzo groaned and turned away. “You are insufferable!”

Genji was about to say something else obnoxious when the unmistakable sound of a door opening stopped him. Hanzo shuddered and plastered his body against the wall and into some shadows. In a half second, he pulled Genji into the shadows too. Genji grinned, but at Hanzo’s snarl, he turned off the lights and just watched.

You stalked through the hallway with your things.

Hanzo’s eyes were riveted as you went blindly past. It was probably unnecessary to pull back like this—your focus was down and you seemed to be carrying the world on your shoulders—but hell, he certainly didn’t want to face you again. In fact, he wanted the earth to swallow him up now.

You disappeared around the corner.

A couple of fraught moments later, Hanzo’s breath sighed out and he leaned against the wall again with a groan. Genji watched as he seemed to sink down and cover his face with his hands. “Hey...anija—is that who was in the garden?” He sighed as Hanzo dropped his hands and stared after you. “Fuck... that’s messed up.”

Hanzo stiffened and his whole face flared with anger. “You have no idea....”

Genji chuckled, biting his tongue to keep from laughing harder. “She’s cute. Beautiful.” He glanced down the hallway and, sure enough, you weren’t coming back. “And... the problem is?”

Hanzo’s whisper was so soft it was barely heard. “She... doesn’t....”

“She doesn’t know?”

“It would be—it is better that way.”

“Better what way? That she doesn’t know you were there to help her out and that you’re over here mooning over her like a puppy watching a steak bone?”

He shook his head sadly, unable to do much more than stare helplessly at his hands. “It would be so much better if she did not know I existed.” His hands clenched into fists. “There would be a chance, then.”

“What? What is that supposed to mean?”

Hanzo let out a bitterly cracked sound that was not a laugh. “It was bad enough that... that the gas... it happened.” His eyes were wide and desolate as he kept staring. “She... she was—.”

“Reaper?” Genji finished. “You couldn’t have known he was there. And you defeated him—.”

“I was... not in time.” He sighed again. “And she... was out of her head. Even if I had protected her, what happened next was... profane.”

Genji’s lights flickered on dimly. “But... you’ve... told—?” Hanzo’s face was enough of an answer. He gaped in surprise, his mouth gulping in air. “You haven’t. You....”

Hanzo growled and raised his fists threateningly. “Tell her what?! That I brought that misery—that foulness upon her? That I went to her room and invaded her privacy and....”

“And what?”

Hanzo felt all of the anger drop to his feet and sink to through to the floor. His body felt limp and hollowed out. “It was... too much—.” His voice went hoarse. “It was... almost.... It must have felt like... rape.”

Genji sighed with a frown. “Did... she say that?” He shook his head with a flush. “Is there going to be—?”

“No complaint—I don’t think.”

“You don’t think?!”

He shrugged limply. “I left her. I... helped her and then I left.”

“Have you even talked to her?”

Hanzo stared at his hands. It was almost a surprise that there wasn’t blood running off of them. He hadn’t ever done anything that wasn’t ruined with violence and bloodshed. If he cut his wrist, darkness and evil and violence and drugs would flow out rather than blood. Genji made an impatient sound and he couldn’t bring himself to care. The curse of the Shimada dug as deep into his soul as it was carved into his skin.

“Is... there anything? Any possibility... she could be—?” He swallowed heavily. “What about pregnancy?”

“Pregnancy?” Hanzo chuckled hoarsely. “No. I did not....”

Genji shivered and he didn’t know if it was disappointment or relief. “What do you... mean?”

Hanzo turned red again and his hands went to fists. “I did not... finish—does that satisfy your morbid curiosity?”

“My.... Fuck.” He whirled in anxious pacing. “That must have been... miserable. For hours.”

Hanzo let out an impatient snarl. “It is what I deserved for letting that filth into the world.” Abruptly, he sagged again. “And one more sin on my soul.” Hanzo shrugged wearily and looked down the hallway again like a lost soul. “Why must we always pay for the sins of our father, otouto?”

The archer sagged again, as if the world was too much, and walked away.


	9. Chapter 9

Yet nothing boiled in his veins like seeing you. He could not so much as look at you without his body hardening and memories burning his skin. He saw you in the cafeteria, eating a piece of toast, and he was blinded by the thought of your lips in his skin. He heard you talking to someone and his cock suddenly stirred, forcing him to flee. He dreaded the morning meetings, when you were in the same room with him for an hour, and it took hours of training afterwards to beat out the rushing in his head.

He could beat back the lust during the day, but it lurked in the dark hours of sleep because of course it would wait until he was weak. Then his dreams flooded the room. Making him awaken with a thick sweat covering his body and his hands tugging his cock for hapless, pointless... momentary relief.

He dreamed....

He dreamed of open rooms—an endless parade of rooms in all sorts of decor from sitting rooms to bedrooms to open rooms with little more than cushions on the floor. He was lost in the rooms, wandering from this door to that door and his steps echoing over and over. There never was a door back, and every room seemed bigger than than the last.

It was never a terrifying thing starting off, but then he would start to settle down. He’d sit down somewhere—perhaps in a chair, perhaps at a table or on a bench—and then the heated misery would start.

He always saw something that reminded him of you—a flower on a table, a brilliant napkin under a spotless fork, a wordless book on a chair, a picture on the wall—and everything would fuse into heat. Every picture on the wall was of you in some blistering hot way—an impressionistic picture of your breasts, a silhouette of you in a slinky dress that made you look like a goddess, a group of flowers that looked like the same flushed pink as your lips. Every book was filled with you.

The scene shifted and darkened with a magical twilight and he would be in his suite at Hanamura. You walked to the door in a silk kimono of midnight blue with white carnations around the hems and a scarlet obi. The white under layer glistened against the blue and your skin. The would be enough to make him smile as you twirled your hair in your fingers, but then you tugged the lapel and pulled it loose from the conservative obi. It fell open like a sultry nightrobe, a hedonist tease that suddenly dipped almost entirely down your back and then split to show your legs to your thighs. He would rise to embrace you and untie the complicated drum knot at the small of your back and pull the long scarlet fabric away.

Things shifted and you would be stretched out under a bridge with your thighs at his cheeks. Your fist pressed into your mouth to stifle your screams, desperately trying to hide that you were coming undone again from the people walking over the bridge in clacking geta. His face was covered with the slick pouring out of your body and your fingers tangled in his long hair. Your voice shook as you pleaded for more in hushed whispers.

“More... just don’t stop, koibito,” you called.

He pushed his fingers into you. “Forgive me?”

You arched up, pressing your core up to him in slick, pink heat. “I never was angry, lover.”

His laugh would echo around him as he pushed deeper, his knuckles glistening with your slick. “Never?”

The scene flickered and your body was leaning across the table from him in a loose sweater that inexplicably was sliding off of one shoulder and low over your breasts. In your hand was a slender wine glass and everything seemed alive with flickering candles like fireflies.

He smiled, “You are beautiful.”

You smiled back and shook your head. He liked teasing you and you were always properly modest about things. “You say such nice things.”

He chuckled as you picked up a strawberry with a brilliant red hue. The berry pressed to your lips, like you were kissing it. Then with a flash of teeth, you bit into it with a smirk. A trickle of pink juice slid down from the corner of your mouth. He watched, rapt, as you let it—damn it, you knew what this did him and how it made him hard—drop to your collarbone. It glistened there like a drop of sweetness. He pushed everything aside with a crash and lunged after it. He trailed his tongue along the sweet path.

“Baby,” you sighed as he pressed his tongue along your neck. “Baby, don’t stop.”

“You cannot fight me.”

You laid back and arched up. It would make him so rock hard, as if it was a switch in his head that would light him up. “You feel so good.”

Things shifted again like a whirling wind. He was on top of you and feeling your body shudder. You writhed as you laid in top of your clothes and his clothes were under your head. His body was aching hard, but there was nothing between the two of you to stop him from pounding inside your body. Only moments ago you had led him on a merry chase, running discretely through the streets before ducking in here.

The tatami mats sank as he rocked against you. You were so sweet, so beautiful as the red flush went from your cheeks to your lips and to the tips of your nipples. He could feel that thick wet coming out—the sweet mix of your repeated arousal and the endless cum he could pour into you—and it was such an erotic and dirty sound.

“Go... go faster,” you whimpered.

“You are too impatient,” he growled.

“Gonna cum.”

“Patience, my blossom,” he whispered, “and do not rush such a sweet thing.”

“I want your baby,” you blurted out, sending a somehow sweeter thrill down his spine. “I want—.”

“I know!” he cried, shuddering.

“Now!” you whimpered, shifting your legs higher around his body.

He felt the cum shoot out of his body and deep into yours. His seed would live in you, creating new life. You wailed and clawed his back, drawing deep red lines even across his tattoo, before you came again on his cock.

When he drew back, gasping for breath, he saw the indigo dragon tattoo twisting from your hip up your side. The dragon winked up at him, claws extended to cradle the soft sweet swell of your belly. He spread shaking fingers over your body, feeling the taut skin that covered where his child would grow.

“Excited?” you smiled. “About the baby?”

He grinned, feeling the rush in his veins again. He started moving harder and faster as you began shaking underneath him. His cock was hard and hot and throbbed as he arched to give you....

He woke up again, his cock throbbing and aching and sticky in his sheets. He didn’t dare so much as touch himself for fear he would explode. Shaking, he turned on the small bedside light. If he even tried to do more than that, he was sure to make an embarrassing mess.

Why did you haunt him so?

He finally pulled off the sheet and sat up. He glanced at the ruddy cock almost pressing into his belly. Staggering around, he managed to make it to the bathroom. With a practiced flip of his wrist, he turned on the shower and then stepped into it.

The icy cold water pelted him like knives, making him growl as it froze him to the bone. His body shuddered, feverish and freezing at war in his blood. He finally stood upright, letting the cold water hit that aching part that did not want to let the dream go.

It was too late to go back to sleep and too early to get up for his duties when he drug himself back to bed. There was nothing left except to open the cabinet beside the bed and pull out the large bottle. He pulled off the top and lifted it to his lips, desperate for the soporific deadening that would let him go on with you existing only in his dreams.


	10. Chapter 10

A few days later, you were surprised to see Genji coming up to you with a grin. “Hey, gorgeous,” he crowed. “Got a second?”

You nodded in confusion and put your tablet under your arm. “Of course, sir.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “I wanted to ask you a few questions—that’s all.”

You frowned and followed him as he led you to a small area with comfortable seats and a small table. “Sir...is this...?”

He glanced up at you and shrugged as he sprawled in one of the chairs. Gesturing to the others, he grinned, “And let’s drop the ‘sir’, huh? Just want to talk.”

You perched across from him. “How can I help you, sir?”

“Like I said, I just wanted to ask some questions. About the last mission.”

“What is it, sir? I thought that I had been clear in my report—?”

“Oh, that,” he nodded, his cheerful expression never faltering. “Yeah... the commanders don’t have any problems with your report.”

“Then what is it?”

“I was hoping that you would tell me about... about the gas attack.” He shrugged and blithely added, “I need to follow up and wanted to see if there was anything else you could tell me about the Reaper’s attack.”

You shook your head. “The gas?” You tilted your head and thought deeply, trying to pick out what he might want to know. “Is it important?”

Genji’s almond eyes gleamed. “Hanzo thought of you. That you would know more that would give him an advantage.”

You looked puzzled. “Hanzo? Your brother?”

He leaned back in the chair. “Well, how many Hanzo’s are there on base?”

You realized he was right and flushed nervously—he was right after all. “Well... if it will help you—.”

“It will help Hanzo and me.”

You nodded as you swallowed. “The... the truth is... that it happened kind of fast—.” The dry scratching in your throat made you want water. “The Reaper grabbed me. And the grenade....”

Genji frowned and reached to pat your hand. “It’s okay. We can get Hanzo,” he murmured, “if you need some support.”

“The gas... sparkled or something and was dark. I felt so weak and so....” You shook your head. “I was choking and then... he disappeared behind me. And then I remember the explosions, but I am just... confused on what happened. My head spun and I was so confused. Truthfully, it must have made me sick or something—the rest of the night is kind of a blur and I don’t remember much.”

“Oh?”

“Just going back to the hotel and... and I had some fucked up dreams.” You inwardly groaned and turned red. “I apologize for my language, sir. I... it’s—. The rest of it is just weird. I must have been delirious or something.”

Genji nodded, “Sounds like an ordeal. Was there anything else that might be helpful?”

“I don’t think that my nightmares of Reaper are going to be helpful to anyone,” you muttered sourly.

The ninja nodded slowly, his friendly smile not wavering. “Just Reaper? No one else?”

You paused and thought hard. There were shadows and shades and flickers of nightmarish half memories came through your mind without stopping. Then there was something else—some half forgotten thing that seemed important—but you couldn’t remember what it was.

The erotic dreams were not something you were prepared to admit to anyone, but most especially not to the biggest, most notorious playboy on base.

“No, sir—I’m sorry, but there’s nothing else I can really remember,” you sighed. “And as sick as I must have been, I’m not even sure I remember that much correctly.”

He smiled and leaned back a bit. “You know—anything might help.” Of course, you shook your head again and he nodded slowly before giving you a shallow bow. “Hanzo is ready to get this follow up done, so you can also go to him if you remember anything else.”

You nodded uncertainly, worried that there was some hidden meaning in his words. Then your pad beeped, and you shuffled nervously. “Of course, sir—thank you, sir.”

“Remember, Hanzo will be glad to talk to you.”

Then he got up and left as you watched him in confusion.


	11. Chapter 11

Hanzo held his head as Genji watched him from across the table in his brother’s apartment. “What do you want, Genji?”

“Just listen to me, anija. Seriously, she’s... really not a devil or something. Just talk to her.”

He shook his head sadly. “It is foul enough to have done this to her to begin with. Why do we need to continue this charade?” His laugh was broken. “There is no chance that she would even agree to meet with me.”

“But she might—?”

“And then what? Tell her that I have watched her from shadows because I did not dare speak to her? That I said nothing, did nothing because I did not want to destroy the illusion that we might one day meet properly? Even I can say that is beyond the pale of propriety!”

“But, Hanzo—!”

“And then to tell her that my... my father was the one to create that gas—.”

“One of three.”

“—and that it hit her, what then?”

Genji puffed out an impatient snarl. “But she will... at least listen to you.”

He laughed again, sagging into his chair. “And what do you think she will say about breaking into her room?”

“That you were there to help her?”

“And what I did to her?”

Genji snarled and slammed his fists on the table. “She might be grateful that you fought off the Reaper?” He rolled his eyes. “Why is this so hard? You’ve never even spoken to her properly and you are somehow just sure she hates you!”

“Who would not? After all that I have done?”

“Could you just try? Just try and say something—anything—to her.”

“She will refuse—at best.” He glanced around. “At worst... it is exile—again!—and who will take us in then? Who will stop the remaining Shimada, the other yakuza, from hunting us down?”

Genji groaned and held his head as if it could still pound with frustration and headache. “Look... why is the indomitable and fearless Shimada kumicho scared of talking to a woman?”

Hanzo gave a wry grimace and sighed, “If you adore her so much, you are certainly welcome to talk to her if you wish. I am sure that she will favor the Sparrow over an old dragon like me.”

Genji snarled and banged his head on the table. “The sole reason she would is because you are such a scared little prick you won’t give her a chance!”

Hanzo shrugged in the appearance of a sudden good mood with the humor of a condemned man. “I see you remain as logical as always. If you pursue her, I wish you both well—you will undoubtedly be a better... better man... for... for her than I.”

Genji sighed and watched as Hanzo crept out the door. It was probably too much to hope to hope his stubborn brother would actually bend, actually try. Hanzo had never been social, never been hopeful or idealistic. The only metaphysical thing Hanzo had ever held close was the austere and bitter interpretation of Bushido that Sojiro had espoused. That and his own bitter solitude. Still, he had hoped that somehow this was a chance....

Hanzo did deserve a chance at happiness. His big brother had done so much, risked so much. Even after he had shown himself, revealed that he was alive and a part of the Overwatch that they had hated, his brother had misled the Shimada members and kept his secret. He had abandoned them to join their pursuers and then had turned on them like a ravaging oni to devour them alive. Now his every step—his every move and thought—was risking his life to save others.

Still, there was half a plan in his head. He wasn’t his brother. Hanzo was the most brilliant strategist the clan had ever had. He was a chess expert—a go prodigy. No one could come up with a plan like he could. A week and he could lead men across a province with no one realizing it. Two weeks and he could lead men across the country. A month and he could do anything. The Reaper had only gotten away because the commanders had not listened to him about the caverns. No, he couldn’t put together a world saving plan like Hanzo, but he did have a half of a plan. That had to be better than no plan, right?

And it would start with a box of candy.


	12. Chapter 12

Hanzo got back to his apartment and grabbed his bottle of sake. Once more he was left with dreams and frustration. He had happened to walk past your apartment—sheerly by accident—and saw your light on. His mind flashed with brilliant images of you that he squelched in sheer self defense so that he could manage to get home.

He drank from the bottle, the slick forgetfulness going down his throat.

He would give anything to be able to go to your door and say something—anything intelligent. To go back in time and speak the first time he had watched you from the shadows. Even the second time. To have spoken at all in the many times your path had crossed his.

As he took another drink, he wondered how he could meet you. What could he say or do? How could he even bring up... anything?

In his head, he could walk up to you. He could give you a soft greeting, offer you a flower or something. He would be able to offer you a seat somewhere and tell you that you were beautiful. He could offer you a drink of coffee or tea or something. 

He hung his head in shame.

What was he supposed to say? That he used to be a killer? That he arranged for killings and murders like others arrange for flowers for girlfriends? Was he supposed to say if you asked about his family—that his father ruled part of the Japanese underworld with a bloody, iron fist? That even his mother had killed her biggest rival for his father’s affections? That he had owned a stable of prostitutes that had run all over Tokyo and Hanamura? That he had bought and sold women among all the leaders of his clan? That the drugs his clan sold had ruined thousands of lives? That the drug he had treasured as the Shimada Scion was the very one you had had forced into your body?

If you somehow weren’t appalled at the rest, the last would rightfully bury him. 

With another drink burning down his throat, he closed his eyes and couldn’t help but see you again. You tasted of sweetness and beauty. He treasured the soft whine in his ear, the way you had trembled against him. The clench of your body trapping him in such delight and heat that he could not have escaped even if it killed him.

But there was nothing to be done for the past. He couldn’t change it. He couldn’t do anything about it. The only thing to do was to carry on, to not repeat his past errors and to fix what he could. He could bury himself in the work of being sure that the last of the gas was truly gone, and that it would not ever be recreated. He could pay for his sins in sweat and blood and pain, and try to find redemption.

His life for his sins. Equivalent exchange.

There was nothing else to hope for.

He knew the bitterest truth, though. The sole thing he hoped for was the small slivers of time—seconds or minutes out of every few days—that he happened to see you or hear your voice. There was no telling how many times he had passed by with his head down in his reports and trying to avoid everyone. But after that forced passion of that one night, it seemed that he couldn’t stop finding you in the tapestry of his days. It was like a child’s seek-and-find puzzle—where would you appear today.

If the whole of night had suddenly gone dark, you would have still been the brilliant spark of light in it. You were the lodestar, drawing his gaze upwards and pointing the way. It was the only thing he had to hope for—a pinprick of light in the thick darkness that was swelling around to engulf him.

At one point, he had been able to pick out a few of the constellations. He had always found Draco, the dragon, as if the dragons in him had drawn him to it. He had found Sagittarius. He was always drawn to the hunter Orion with the huge bow and the sword in his belt.

Now they were dimmed or dark entirely beside the newest star in his universe.

So, he took to his drink, bemoaning the loss of stars and light. He dreaded the coming morning because it marked an end to his dreams of you. He did not want to see the dawn because daylight brought him only tantalizing teases of your smile and laugh. And who knew what misery the next day would bring? Would this be the day you announced you were to be married to another? Would this be the day you left Overwatch entirely? Would this be the day he lost you?

So, on nights like tonight, when nothing else could be done, he would turn his eyes towards your apartment from his window. There was nothing untoward—nothing creepy or invasive—about him looking out the window of his apartment, towards your own. He couldn’t even precisely see it—you were three buildings over—but it was a comfort to look out and see the moon and stars and wonder if you could see the same thing.


	13. Chapter 13

You weren’t sure if you were annoyed or amused at how many times that you saw Genji the next few days. He smiled at you always, had a ready word of encouragement. He made you relax as you kept training and tried to do paperwork and help with planning the next mission. There were stacks and stacks and stacks of intelligence and tips that needed to be analyzed and sorted through and while it was useful, the tedium often set your teeth on edge.

And then the cyborg ninja would appear with his neon green lights blinking.

He would just happen to be there, talking to you about the usual small nothings everyone else did—how was your day, what did you think of the latest political debates, had you had coffee today, had you gone to the movies. Somehow, no matter how early or late, he had a box of candies with him and he’d insist on you getting some of them.

He would start, “Have you seen Hanzo?”

You smirked as he handed you a candy. It was your favorite and you popped it into your mouth with a grin. “Hanzo? Not yet.”

Genji shrugged, “I was hoping that I could drag him out to do something together.” He handed you another candy and smirked, “Hanzo is a studious type—hard working and generally quiet. You’d like him, I think. For example, do you play chess?”

“A little—way back when.”

He handed you another deftly unwrapped candy. If would get sticky and melt if you held it like that, so you popped it into your mouth. “Hanzo is really good,” he murmured. “And it used to make me so mad that he could beat me so easily.”

You giggled as you felt a little thrill go through you. Every time that you saw Genji and you got to talking about Hanzo, you felt that small burst of pleasure. “I don’t know that I’d be a challenge, though.”

Genji only grinned and rooted through the box to find another candy. “Hanzo usually wants to read and study. He’s always working. He could use a good... friend to help him have some fun. You know?”

“And you are such a bratty little brother,” you chuckled.

He laughed and nodded, “Yeah. Drove my family crazy because I never wanted to settle down and do the right thing. Not like my big brother—he’s always done the right thing. Anyway, I have to run. So, maybe I’ll catch you later.”

Then he’d laugh and walk away. And the next day, he’d do it again. Apparently he bought tons of those candies, because every time he’d even say Hanzo’s name, you got a sweet treat pressed into your hand. Once you got a whole pocketful because he wanted to talk about how Hanzo had discussed some debates on television.

There were days that he was almost annoying with it. Then there’d be a crummy day when it was the highlight of your existence to see him and know you were about to get a treat. You actually started looking forward to the little visits—of course you did—but it also made you notice Hanzo. Then you realized distantly you were actually smiling when you saw the archer.

You couldn’t help but notice that Genji was only telling the truth. Hanzo was almost embarrassingly punctual—always right on time whether it was to a meeting across base or at the range. He looked out for his entire team, occasionally staying so late doing the planning and evaluations and recruiting and all of the things a team leader had to do that Genji had to drop off tea and some dinner at his office. Of course he was obsessive about accuracy and precision—he often enough scolded his subordinates for glossing over important details or underestimating things like costs—but he was also quite willing to give praise and promote those he deemed worthy of it.

The more you noticed him, though, the more Hanzo seemed to withdraw. He seemed to always be busy, as if he was trying reach some goal or get some great quest done. It was almost sad to see him working like a fiend without a break. He seemed to be like a runner trying to chase the setting sun. He was so much harsher with himself than anyone else. He was cooly polite—no one could complain that he was rude—but he was never jovial or... relaxed. Genji could tease and torment him—like younger brothers had tormented their elder siblings since the dawn of time—and he would give a strained half smile of exasperation or a small laugh. You were uncertain that you were ever in his attention, but then you’d turn away and suddenly feel like he was watching you. Then when you would turn and he’d be back buried in his tasks.

Today Genji found you coming down the path from the gym. You were sweaty and tired, ready for a shower and honestly desperate for something to eat and something more than the dwindling water from your water bottle. Your clothes seemed to stick to your body and for a moment, you envied his freedom from clothing.

He gave you a shallow bow, a dip of his body, and pulled his face plate off before setting it on the stack of things in his arm. He had been handsome at one point, and even with the thin scars here and there on his cheeks, he was still nice looking.

Just not what you were necessarily looking for.

“Hey there,” he smirked. “Going towards the cafeteria?”

“No—to home and a shower and some clean clothes.”

“Could I walk with you?” You nodded and set out with him down the sidewalk. “Do you have some time to talk?”

You flushed slightly as you tried to come up with a proper answer. “Of course, sir.”

“Just drop the ‘sir’—it makes me feel like I’m a dirty old man.” He waited a few steps as you rounded a corner. “Have you been busy?”

“Just preparing for the next mission, sir.”

“Are there any new developments?”

“On Talon’s new weapon? Not really. There was a possibility but there was nothing to it.”

He hummed and gestured off to one side. You glanced up reflexively and saw Hanzo talking to one of the commanders. He had his back to you and you admired his muscles more than briefly as he gestured in his earnest way. Genji stepped silently behind you and pressed a candy into your hand.

“Hanzo,” he whispered. He unwrapped a candy—you could hear the crinkly sound of the paper—and he whispered again. “My brother is getting ready for the next mission.”

“Oh?” you murmured. You weren’t sure why, but you had begun thinking about.... Well, it was hard to explain, truly, but you had begun feeling a bit happier when you heard his name. When you saw him, it was like you were expecting something nice to happen. “What’s going on?”

Genji shrugged. “I don’t know, but maybe we could ask him.”

“What?”

“He might be looking for a team.”

“Oh.”

He led you over to group and you shakily took a place beside Hanzo. The commander looked at you and Genji and muttered some kind of excuse before walking away. Hanzo stared after him so hard that you thought that the man would shatter.

“How is the mission going, anija?” Genji asked lightly.

The archer slid a sharp, momentary glance to you and shrugged. “I am having some difficulty getting together a team.”

“Oh?” Genji asked innocently.

Hanzo gave you another hasty glance and nodded, his eyes carefully down. “It is most difficult. No one is willing to risk another encounter with Talon with such a small team.”

“I suppose that’s logical,” you replied, “since they are such heavy hitters.”

Genji passed another piece of unwrapped candy to you and you popped it into your mouth to avoid it becoming a mess in your hand. And to avoid talking as Hanzo fixed his steely gaze on you as you swallowed the candy. The ninja only smiled and said, “Let’s go get something to eat—I’m hungry.”

Hanzo flushed and you finally got a look into his eyes. They were sharp and intelligent, but somehow instead of sparkling with merriment like Genji’s, they were filled with sorrow and guilt. It was like looking into a deep river of cool water—dark and full of meaning. He stared at you as if judging your words and then his eyes finally grinned and he could not hide the half note of hope as he asked, “Would you?”

You drowned for a moment in the warmth of his eyes, the note of pleading in his voice as if he did not believe you would even answer. “Ummm... I’d love to—.” His face eased but the still, solemn relaxation was not a smile—not even a grin. “—But I need a shower first.”

His face fell and he looked away. Stiffly he nodded and his shoulders bowed as his face turned red and he walked away without looking back. Genji gaped beside you and you heard him stutter, “T-t-the.... He will.... I can—.”

“You catch up with him,” you nodded, staring after him. “I need to shower before I’m ready to be seen in public.”

He paused for a moment, cocking his head. “Hey... could you tell me something?”

“Of course, sir.”

“Would you—?” He stared at you with a spine tingling seriousness. “Would you really meet him for dinner?”

The question brought a pleased blush to your cheeks and ears. “Of course—I mean.... Why wouldn’t I?”

He grinned and nodded. “That’s good to hear.” Abruptly he shoved the box towards you. “I’ll keep him busy and you hurry and meet us.”

Then he spun on his heel and darted away.

Which left you there on the sidewalk. You puffed out an impatient sigh and ran to get showered and changed. Then you walked—jogged to the cafeteria. Most everyone was there, getting portions of fried chicken and mashed potatoes and carrots and some of the driest, saltiest cornbread in the known universe. You scanned the tables restlessly.

Genji waved from an empty table and you walked over. “Hey, there.”

You glanced back at the lines of people and the milling crowd. “So... where is he?”

Genji patted the table. “He’s... he’s not coming.”

“Oh.”

He looked up at you and said, “Look, I’ll get you whatever you want for dinner, but I need to just talk to you for a while.”


	14. Chapter 14

He took you out to a quiet steakhouse. An Omnic waiter sat you both in a booth in the back and brought you drinks and appetizers. Apparently Genji came here often since the waiter knew exactly what he wanted and then disappeared with your order.

“So what’s all this?” you whispered.

“It’s... a chance,” he whispered back. He held his hands up and gave you a shy, strained smile. “Not for me. Sorry—but you’re not my type. If I even have a type in this stuff. But it is a chance for Hanzo.” He sighed and shrugged. “I know he doesn’t seem to need anyone. But... he likes you. He adores you.”

You chuckled awkwardly. “I mean... he hardly knows me. He barely even speaks to me.” You shrugged and fiddled with a fork. “It’s like he can’t stand me.”

Genji’s face fell into a thoughtful look. His every movement was suddenly slow and thoughtful, and he slumped down in a bizarre way as if he was trying to appear harmless. “It is... hard for me to... to explain.”

You were about to say something but the Omnic waiter returned with refills of water and the plates of salad and steak and a peculiar, neon pink glass of thick liquid on a stand with a small, clear plastic tube coming out of the bottom. You both absently, automatically, thanked the waiter as it chirped and left.

Genji sighed and put his arm on the table. He pressed a small button to release a metallic panel. With a bit more fiddling, he had a small tube pulled out and plugged into the straw coming out of the stand. A second more of whirring and you saw the liquid bubble a bit and then start to drain.

He smiled at you stiffly and nodded. “It’s... a sort of—. It’s an Omnic thing.”

“Oh.”

“It’s an additive to help me process food into nutrients and components my Omnic parts need. They can use the fats and some of the essential amino acids and... the antioxidants so nothing rusts or decays. But I can’t really live like that.” He shuddered in an over dramatic way. “And all of the Omnic supplement stuff tastes nasty, so I’d rather do this.”

You flushed and looked down at your modest meal. He insisted that you should order whatever you wished and your eyes had bugged at the largest steak meal—“The Couple’s Delight”—with salads, steaks, potatoes, vegetables and an ice cream sundae topped with chocolate covered strawberries—and the discretely printed cost beside it. Instead, you ordered a much more modest meal.

In stilted silence you both ate a few bites before Genji began again. “So... do you remember much—. I mean, have you thought about what happened in that last mission?”

“In La Ciudad Perdida?” You took an anxious bite. “It’s.... I’ve put everything in my report.”

“Everything? You... left nothing out?”

You scowled and bowed your head. “Look—what are you asking?”

“I was wondering... about the night after.”

You stabbed another bite hard enough to make your plate ring and the fork let out a screech. “I had some nightmares.”

He nodded slowly. Finally, he whispered, “I know.”

“You... know?”

He sighed, fiddling idly with the tubes and his silverware. “I know... because I know what made them.”

You snorted at the half-empty plate and shrugged, “A bad mission and next to no food and water?”

He sighed patiently, waiting until you were done fidgeting and scowling, and then whispered, “It was not your fault. It was a sin from a long time ago, come to haunt us now. Once....” He gave an awkward grimace and nodded. “It seems so long ago—it’s almost a fairy story. Do you know who we are?”

“You are... Genji Shimada?”

He laughed bitterly. “Now, I am. But before that... I was the Shimada Suzume.”

“What was that? Is that?”

“The Shimada Sparrow was in charge of the junior members of the gang—of the yakuza family—.” He saw you go pale. “It was... a long time ago. And—if it helps—we were pardoned. In exchange for our cooperation to help bring down the gangs and try to break their hold on Japan.

“We were too late, though. Our father had already made a treaty with two other gangs to create Rasutosuta. The Ryuhana were to have unlimited control of the northern third of Japan, including Hokkaido. We had control of the territory around Hanamura and Tokyo and the export to China and western United States.

“It’s a long story. We were trying to survive. To make some money. So we created Rasutosuta. It was to make make money and the drug was to... to make... people....”

You stared blankly at him. Suddenly you were nauseous and you pushed the plates away. “What are you trying to say?!”

Genji looked heartbroken for a moment. “I’m trying to say.... I’m trying to say, first—I’m really, really sorry.” He flinched at your glower and rage. “It’s... not personal... not against you. It wasn’t meant to be against you.

“Please understand that... we hadn’t meant it to be mean or something. We meant... we were trying to make money and it... seemed like a good idea at the time. That we made the Rasutosuta—to....”

Your jaw hurt with the gritting of your teeth. “What did you do to me?”

“Hanzo—.”

“Don’t bring him into it.” He blinked anxiously. “What did you do?”

“The Rasutosuta is a gas to heighten... sexual desire.” He flushed and shrugged, “Something that everyone wanted. And then we... sold it.”

You were standing already, almost shaking, when he put a hand on your arm. “Just listen—give me five—ten more seconds and then you can brain me with your plate if you want.”

You sat down and snarled at him, “Make it fast—‘cause I am really accurate with a knife.”

“When we joined Overwatch, we tried to—first thing—to destroy all of it so that no one would ever go through that again.” That made you blink and he rushed to add, “We’ve spent years tracking labs and dealers and suppliers to destroy it all.

“It about killed Hanzo,” he whispered, seeing you at least marginally relax and look willing to talk. “On the one hand, this is his father’s legacy. Our father gave up so much... gave up territory that the Shimada had controlled for decades, weapons and wealth to make this so that his children and grandchildren would have wealth and good lives.

“On the other hand, it is a despicable way to earn a living. It did hurt a lot of people. There were tons of people who got hurt, got addicted. We need to remove it, get it away and destroy it so that no one could ever suffer like that again. We spent hours and hours and we will be spending more hours now that we know that Talon has gotten it.”

You frowned, trying to stop shivering. “But... Hanzo?”

“He has to tear everything he has valued down—everything his father built up so that he could have a good life and support his family—and burn it to the ground.” His eyes crinkled and you saw a wet sparkle in them. “Do you get it? Everything the our father built up, everything he fought for and bled for—all of it—we have had to destroy... it all.”

You sniffed a little—a lot unexpectedly. You valued the things you had inherited from your family. You were proud of the pictures you had of your family—holidays and family portraits and the usual random, casual pictures of friends and family just doing things. You had so many little mementoes—a frame from a cousin with a picture of a dog, a ratty pillow from your early days when you were desperate for anything to dress up an almost bare starter apartment, a rickety chair and a makeshift bookshelf. You cherished everything.

“Wh-wh-what happened?” you whimpered. “I mean.... Ohmigod—it wasn’t a dream was it? Reaper... in my room! And then—!”

Genji nodded even before your voice trailed off and you began gaping at him. “It was... our fault—.”

“Unless you are the asshole who let him in—!”

“No!” he hissed angrily. “That bastard came in through the ventilation system—!”

“But... if he was real—. Then... after—.” Your whole face turned red. “Oh... fuck.”

Genji sighed and nodded, nudging your drink towards you. “I know. I know. Take a deep breath.”

“I was... so hot and... and feverish!” You lowered your head down to the table, hitting it to try to drive the crazy thoughts out. “I thought... it was just a dream.”

Genji sighed, gesturing towards the Omnic waiter. He murmured softly and the waiter disappeared just as fast. In a minute, he had a bowl of ice cream and a martini glass with a milky drink and smeary lines of chocolate syrup along the inside of the glass.

You looked at the ice cream and martini and sniffled again. “And then what?”

“You were... sick.... from the gas,” he began again in a low and slow voice as if you were a wild animal. “The Reaper went down a crack in the rocks to the underground caverns. We guess he stayed there and came up through the ventilation—.”

You snarled, tossed back half the martini and dug into the ice cream. “Or the well pipes.”

He cocked his head thoughtfully. “Yeah... I suppose that’s a possibility too. And that night, he got to you and—.”

“Fuck. I dreamed that he... he—. In that awful sleeping bag—!”

“I... know. And....” He sighed, his eyes going closed slowly. “Hanzo saved—.”

You sobbed noisily into the ice cream bowl. “Hanzo saved me, didn’t he? And—and I was so hot and feverish and... I am so sorry. I do-d-d-didn’t have any idea!” You looked up at his face with tears running down your cheeks. “I j-j-just didn’t kno-o-ow!”

He smiled warmly at you as you wiped your face with the cloth napkin. “It’s okay. Reaper got close, but Hanzo chased him off.”

You blubbered, “Did... did he get hurt?”

Genji was shocked for a moment but grinned slyly. “He’s fine.” He nudged the bowl of ice cream towards you until you took a small bite. “Hanzo didn’t get hurt, but he clipped Reaper pretty good.”

You smirked darkly into the bowl of ice cream. So Hanzo wounded the Reaper? Good. You slurped a half melted bite. “I’m glad.”

Genji snorted, amused by your response. “So, you are all right?”

You dug out a another sweet and creamy bite. You wanted Reaper dead—again—and you were sure you’d do anything to make that happen. You glanced up at the playboy to find him grinning at you. “What are you laughing at?”

He shook his head. Slowly he undid the tube from his arm and tucked the pieces away. “Would you like to catch a movie or something? Anything so we can keep talking.”

You shook your head and tossed the spoon into the dish. “Why wouldn’t he tell me?” You snapped far more harshly than you intended, “Wait—does this mean—?”

Genji shook his head. “No... he was—.” His whole face turned red—a brilliant shade next to the metal bands on his neck and across his forehead. “You can trust me—he was very careful. Careful to protect you.”

You glowered at him. “And how do you suppose that?”

“Hanzo has always been careful.”

You shoved the dishes away. “Take me back to base.”

Genji paid quickly and took you back. You glowered the whole way, ignoring his stilted attempts at banter. Somehow even in this vehicle, he had a stash of candies that he began doling them out as he began talking. You took them out of the polite manners your family had drummed into your head, but you refused to speak to him.

He drove to a parking lot a few buildings away from your home. He looked a bit amused as you shoved the candies in your pocket. “So, you haven’t told me where you want to be dropped off.”

Instantly you snapped, “Here is fine.” Almost before he could speak, you had opened your door. “Thanks for dinner.”

“Do you want to see Hanzo?” he asked innocently. You turned to stare at him and then realized...you weren’t in your normal parking lot. “I mean... you never told me which building is yours and we are close to his place.”

That was probably the one thing he could have said to make you stop from slamming the door in his face. You thought about it for a moment and poured as you realized you did want to speak to the archer. Even if you weren’t sure if you wanted to thank him or pound his face.

His perfect face....


	15. Chapter 15

Hanzo sighed as he tried to relax. His apartment was a serene oasis, most times. He had carefully selected everything to bring himself peace. There was the ink drawing of the samurai facing a coiling dragon in his bedroom. There was the blown glass incense holder that scented the air with coils of sandalwood smoke. He had soft sheets and a wide bed—a real Western bed rather than a futon—and there was the black leather chair and a small matching sofa with the small teak table between them in the corner with the vase lamp on it. He had a bookshelf loaded with books of all kinds rather than books only devoted to Japanese history and business theory. He even had a small stack of books from the base library so that he could read as he streamed any music he wanted from his small phone.

He sipped the hot tea in his small black lacquered cup and read about growing his own herbs. He had taken to picking up books at random from the library to read in his off hours. At first it was nothing more than a past time—he had no true interest in growing roses, sewing clothes, cooking for weight loss, tying fishing flies, or building birdhouses—but now he felt a new idiotic enthusiasm for the books he selected. This one he had picked up because the plastic covered dust jacket had a woman’s slender hands separating the green basil leaves and he loved imagining that it was your hands.

It might have irritated him—everything in his life reminding him of you—but it made his day inexplicably sweeter. He could sip his tea—the highest grade he could get—and imagine you lounging on the couch and drinking it with him. He could cook his modest meals and wonder if you would like his attempts to produce something better than merely edible since he could candidly say cooking was not his forte. He could practice his archery and imagine you cheering for his success with every bullseye. He could even enjoy the long meetings, pretending that you were with him or even that you were waiting for him at his apartment.

Not that you were waiting for him. Not that you were cheering for him. Not that you were lounging so close to him. Not that you were at all interested in what he was cooking or doing.

Or even that he was alive.

His music was a soft lilt in the air like the scent of the sandalwood as he sat learning about the best way to grow lavender and chamomile and valerian in containers. The book was specific about the mix of potting soil to use and how to give them proper drainage and prevent bugs. It was not hard according to the book—a simple formula of sunlight, soil and water—and those herbs would help ease stress and promote relaxation. He needed a few pots and some soil and a few starter seeds and then simply time.

He turned the page and looked at the careful illustration of hands thinning the bunches of seedlings, when his doorbell rang. He took the plastic bookmark—a free one from the library advertising the free tot story hour—and slid it horizontally under the line he had gotten to before carefully setting it on the table.

He was at peace, he told himself, and could face anything. There was nothing he couldn’t face, no terror of the night that he couldn’t best. Even the thought of Reaper on the other side of the gray door only filled him with a mild eagerness to finish what the wraith had started when he attacked you. He had achieved inner peace—.

And that inner peace was completely shattered to see you there, your hand holding onto Genji’s bright green bangs as he stumbled after you. Genji grunted sourly as he twisted away, only to have your fingers tighten more and tug him even harder and lower until his knee hit the doorstep.

For a moment, the archer was terrified and he fought to keep from screeching and slamming the door in embarrassed memories. He felt the serenity puff out like a candle and his peaceful daydreams turn to dry dust. It hurt to let go of those harmless thoughts—an almost visceral pain as they flitted away. Had it not been for Genji’s sour yelp, he might have—

—done anything else.

Instead, he grew more furious that his brother had obviously upset you—perhaps even hurt you. He growled and yanked on the green hair to haul Genji into the apartment. Trust Genji to go after the thing he wanted most and to spoil it. He could only pray that the cyborg hadn’t hurt you irreparably.

Without a pause, he muscled the other man to the couch and pushed him to sit down. “What did you do, Genji?!”

“Me?! I was being very nice and we went to eat—!”

Hanzo had his hand around his brother’s throat. “What. Did. You. Do?!”

You coughed and snapped, “We have spent the evening discussing the last mission—and what happened afterwards.” He jerked and looked at you with a frustrated blush and then back at his brother. “And you!”

Hanzo barely noticed the frantic smacking of his arm as his world fell apart all over again. He thought he knew suffering when he realized that his sins were back to haunt him in the form of a sparkling gas. Now here it was again—that cracking beneath his feet to show him only a bottomless chasm filled with his writhing sins, the shifting walls toppling everything that he had ever tried to build up and the unmistakable rush as if the truth was a tsunami to drown him. He could barely stand, couldn’t look you in the eyes and couldn’t face you.

Genji collapsed as Hanzo let go. Coughing and gasping, he shuffled off the couch and staggered inches away. You watched them both with wide eyes and your shock matched Hanzo’s own.

“What are...? Why—?!” he whispered. Slowly, like an old man suffering with his years, he staggered to the couch and sat down. “You will want answers.” You nodded stiffly, your mouth straining to a thin line. He gestured towards the chair and then tugged Genji’s metal shoulder to pull him away from the chair. The ninja coughed and folded into a ball to roll backwards and come up away from the chair. “Please, sit.”

Slowly, you went to sit down. Facing them, you weren’t sure if you were mad or what. Actually, you weren’t even sure what to say in the whole whirlwind of things you were upset about. Everything seemed to be spinning wildly inside.

It was a relief that the archer glared at his brother and pointed, “Sit, Genji.” Genji grimaced and gracefully went to sit on the floor with his legs folded in a way that seemed to suggest a yoga pose. “Now, please—could I... explain?”

You sat back and glared at him. “Genji has already told me about the gas. That you made that crap—.”

He nodded slowly. “I see. Has he told you more?”

“What else is there to know?!” you demanded.

He flinched at your response and nodded. “I cannot apologize enough for... for what happened to you. The Rasutosuta was... my father’s fault. My fault.”

“Reaper threw the grenade,” Genji added helpfully.

“Shut up,” you both yelled at him.

Hanzo sighed impatiently and shot you a burning hot look. “It is my fault for not destroying it all. For continuing my father’s legacy.” He grimaced as though swallowing something bitter beyond words. “And it is my responsibility to find every trace of it and... and destroy it.”

“Your... father’s legacy...,” you whispered.

He nodded, his eyes solemn and cool suddenly as he began staring beyond his feet to the carpet. “My father’s... legacy. The last trace of Shimada Sojiro.”

You shuddered at the desolation in his words. Fumbling for something to say that wasn’t blatantly cruel, you whispered, “It must be... difficult for you.”

His mouth twisted but it wasn’t in a smile. “It... it is hard to explain.” He finally looked at you in that solemn and empty way. “Sojiro... he was a-a-a man who... who loved his family. He wanted us to have life easier—better—than he had it. He had struggled for his whole life to make ends meet and to have enough to provide for us.

“He educated us well. He sent us to school, got us tutors and weapons. He made sure we dressed well and we had the appearance of wealth. But—as you know—the yakuza are dying out. Really, for generations now, we have been getting squeezed out of existence, but Sojiro wanted us to live well and do better, have more than he did.

“He gave up tremendous stakes of territory to get the other clans to work with him.” Hanzo frowned. “We had the most territory, but the Ryuhana had claimed several key points including several labs. The Karischi held the shipping and transport unions. So, we all had to give up our key assets—work together. No single one of us had everything to make it work.

“Sojiro gave up territory to the others—territory that we had held and defended for ages. And the... the money he had saved for us immigrate to the United Kingdom. He sold his father’s sword—the last heirloom from my grandfather—and my mother’s kimono and her antique hair combs. She loved those combs—they were pure silver with two black pearls in them. But it all went to pay for that... gas.”

You saw how torn up he was. “I’m sorry.”

“It was a.... I wish I could say ‘it was a long time ago’—but it was not long enough.” His hands curled up into tight fists. “We have spent years tracing the gas, the scientists and dealers. Everyone that had anything to do with it—everyone we could find who had any connection to it.” He sighed and bowed his head over his fists. “It cost Sojiro everything and... and we have had to-to... destroy it. 

“Everything was destroyed—even the estate was seized and turned over to the government. Every coin any of us had was gone—even from our little piggy banks. Everything that could be sold or seized was—even the littlest bonsai. Even my mother’s kimono and obi.”

You looked briefly at Genji and even he seemed thoughtful and regretful—if not sad. Genji nodded slowly. “Her obi and kimono were sold and are now all over the world. The last I knew two of them were in the Sapporo Museum of Fashion and three more had been bought by private collectors.”

“Everything is gone,” Hanzo whispered hoarsely. “There is nothing left for either of us. Our home is now a museum. There is no money, no accounts. The swords and weapons were sold. The Shimada name is now a... a historic oddity and a curse.”

You felt a peculiar softening inside and a curling of conflict. “But... what happens next?”

Hanzo looked towards his brother. “We are here. We work for Overwatch until—.”

“Until we die,” Genji piped up. You looked at him in shock and he rubbed his scalp pointedly. “Well, it’s true.”

“Until you... die?” you whispered.

Hanzo soft snort drew your attention to him. “So long as we... cooperate with Overwatch, we have full pardons and—contrary to what my overly dramatic brother says—we are merely exiled from Japan.”

The other man snorted, “Not that we should return anyway since without Overwatch’s backing, we are marked men and just about damn near anyone can take us out without anyone saying anything.”

You flinched, “Hanzo... is that true?”

He leaned back and rubbed his head. “It is true that any of the remaining yakuza would be glad to kill us.”

Genji piped up again, “Not to mention a number of police, a few organized crime units, SWAT. That minister of the interior. A few—.”

“Enough, Genji,” the older Shimada sighed. “We have other things to discuss, anyway.”

The cyborg grinned and rubbed his scalp again before glancing at the older man. Hanzo gave him a look that made him sober. For a moment, there was an awkward sort of silence and finally both men looked at you.

Hanzo spoke first in a low and gravely tone. “Now, all that remains is to decide what to do.”

It was like listening to a general call his troops to attention or a teacher quiet a rowdy class. Slowly you and Genji turned towards him, and he sat silently for a moment, staring at his fists on his knees. In a gravelly and strained whisper, he asked, “What do you intend to do with me, now?”

You gaped for a moment, your mouth working but nothing coming out. “W-w-what—?”

He looked up at you and his whole face was almost as gray as the silver hair at his temples. His eyes were dull and lifeless as they stared at you. “Do you intend on going forward with a formal complaint?”

The archer watched as you seemed to lapse into thought. He couldn’t help but study you, even now. You were beautiful. He debated whether or not he dared move to even bring you tea. It was almost like his overheated fantasies, but so much more as well. He wanted this to be for real...a gathering of family like hadn’t happened since his father had passed.

And, like he always had, Genji shattered the moment, saying, “Should we start packing?”

You blinked and looked at the cyborg thoughtfully. “But why?”

“If you are going to make a fuss, then we will be likely dismissed.” The ninja shrugged in an attitude of nonchalance, despite the distinct childlike terror glistening in his eyes. “We will not—. We don’t have a home to go to, so we... we’d like to know if we are going to be kicked out.”

You shuddered slightly. The thought that two Overwatch heroes could be... be homeless because of... that night was unbearable. It seemed to be so unfair, especially since it was Reaper who pulled the pin. And Hanzo had driven off that hideous creature when you were attacked afterwards. It was unfair—it felt so unbearably unfair—that he would be kicked out like a stray dog because of all that.

Your voice was shaking when you choked out, “You were there afterwards—when Reaper was going to... to kidnap me.” He nodded slowly. “You were there after the Reaper was gone and... I was—.”

“That gas was... highly concentrated,” Hanzo whispered. “According to Mercy’s analysis, the concentrations of the active ingredients were... were much higher than for a normal dose.”

“What would have happened if you hadn’t been there?” you whimpered softly.

Hanzo’s cheekbones turned faintly pink which was a startling shade against the wan pallor of his skin. “The effects... were un-undoubtedly more... extreme. In a normal dose, you would have had... an hour or two of pleasure. You would have been thirsty, perhaps hungry, afterwards and tired, but otherwise you would have not had any effects. It would have passed.”

You shuddered slightly. “And... that’s not what happened.”

Hanzo stared at the fists in front of him. If only he could have done more than a minor wound. If only he could have ended the wraith’s despicable life, stopping him even if he couldn’t have stopped the effects of that drug. If only he could have done something—anything.... He forced himself to be still, to not shudder and gasp as the memories caressed him as delicately as your lover’s fingers and your ardent whispers. “No... that is not what happened,” he sighed bitterly. “It was a highly concentrated, weaponized version of the gas. You were affected for some considerable time and....” He sighed, “I do not wish to think of what might... have happened.”

Genji chose that moment to shift, his metallic body clacking restlessly from his crouch on the floor. “Hey... can I get out of here—?!”

Hanzo rose and lunged effortlessly to grab a fist full of his green hair. Without seeming to care, he drug his brother to his feet and stared heartlessly into the younger man’s face. His voice was deep and cold, like an ancient, dry well or the bottom of some crypt or dungeon. “And you—what are we to do with you?”

Genji whined and wrestled with the implacable hand tightening around the green curls. “You and she are here, and you don’t need me!” He helped and tried twisting, only to tangle his hair up more while the archer didn’t move. “I’m not going—.”

Hanzo’s hand didn’t move an inch as he twisted slightly and looked at you. Corpses had more life in their faces than he did as he held his brother at almost arm’s length like a wiggling fish and looked sorrowfully at you. “Did he hurt you?”

You stared at them both. Genji was wriggling, his eyes glancing at the door and you and wincing with every futile tug. He grimaced as Hanzo simply stood there, waiting on your judgement impassively. With a shake of your head, you gave the only answer you could, “He didn’t hurt me.”

There was a breathless silence that he seemed to weigh your words. Finally he nodded and looked at the ninja with a unforgiving glare and hissed, “Apologize to her this instant.”

Genji pouted and gave a last tug before looking at you and grunting, “Sorry.”

“Apologize properly, Genji,” Hanzo barked.

Genji finally glared at his brother. “You’re not my father and I haven’t done anything—!” Hanzo tightened his fist and he howled. “I didn’t do anything except tell her the truth—! Ouch—I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

Hanzo nodded and casually tugged him to the door. Opening it swiftly, he all but shoved him outside. You heard Genji’s clatter as if he was falling down and then a fluid cursing in Japanese that faded into the distance. The archer only watched him go, his face still grimly set.

When he shut the door and turned away, he seemed almost surprised to see you there for a half second. Then the brief moment was gone and he was almost frowning. He crept carefully closer—not so much he was in arm’s reach, but enough that it carried the solemn feeling that his next words were for you alone.

He bowed low and said, “I apologize to you again. I pledge to you that I will do everything in my power to destroy the remaining gas and all of those who know how to manufacture it.”

You shook and felt your knees grow weak as he looked at you. Every fiber in his body was stiff and tight, but it was his eyes that made you melt. His eyes were burning, blazing, and filled with messages and need that you had never suspected lurked in him. He was facing a firing squad, a guillotine, an assassination and he was not going quietly into the darkness without that silent shouting.

“Err... yes?” you mumbled. “I... uh, thank you.”

He nodded tightly again and took a step backward before bowing again as if he was receiving orders. He gestured fluidly towards the door with a bowed head. “Then all that remains is to wish you a good evening.” He didn’t look up, his whole body strangely humble and cowed. “Please feel free to leave when you wish.”

“Leave?” you asked in confusion. And a small sense of disappointment. Why had you been expecting some kind of heavy push? Some intense, passionate scene? “B-b-but—?”

Hanzo glanced at you through his lashes, wishing he knew what to say next. You were sure to walk out of his life now, and however desperately he wanted to stop it, he wasn’t sure how. All he could think of was to give you room, a ready and socially polite escape that would not cause a loss of face. You could leave at any time, walk out and never return. The walking out wasn’t so bad—he saw it in his nightmares regularly enough—but the never returning part was unbearable.

You shifted lightly from foot to foot in a nervous kind of way. Hanzo sighed and backed up another half step, giving you even more room to walk right past him. He tightened his muscles, forcing himself to not reach for you and sweep you off your feet. He dropped his head lower, put his hands openly in front of his body. You surely couldn’t mistake that he was offering you a completely safe and speedy exit without interference from him.

There was some soft sound and he grit his teeth. Ahh... perhaps it was Genji you were worried about. That would make sense—especially if his brother had done something truly idiotic and hurt or scared you. The ninja’s reputation preceded him in all other ways, it wasn’t so far fetched that you would be anxious about whether or not he was lying in wait in the shadows outside.

He sighed again, keeping his eyes on your feet. Fumbling for words, he bowed shallowly again and whispered in the same humble, pandering tone his father liked his subordinates to use, “What do you want me t-t-to do with—do about... Genji?”

Your voice pitched into a high quiver. “Genji?”

He grit his teeth at the lilt in your tone. What if it was worse than he had ever imagined and you were attracted to his brother instead? That made him shake inside, the rushing pulse in his body now throbbing between attraction and jealousy. “Yes. W-what do you want me to do—?” He bit his tongue at the seductive twist he had not meant to put in his words or his voice. “About Genji?”

You shuddered and whispered, “What do you... mean?”

He sighed again. “If you wish, I will fetch him back... for you.” His head finally rose and turned towards the door. “I—. If you would feel safer.”

“Why would I feel safer with him?”

Hanzo bit the tip of his tongue again to stop from smiling at your reply. Even if he couldn’t believe that you meant it, he would hold it in his head and... if he dared, in his heart. You wobbled again and he stifled his own impatience. He was doing everything in his power to show you that you could leave at any point.

“Could I use your bathroom?” you whispered. His head snapped up in automatic surprise and he was startled to see your slight flush. It was almost like you... were feeling just a little bit as awkward as he did. His heart soared at the tiny, thin feeling of intimacy that the small common ground afforded him. “I mean... we came straight here from the restaurant and—.”

“Of course,” he nodded again with another fluid gesture towards the door to his bathroom. “It is through there—.”

“Yeah... uh, I know,” you flushed again. “I mean, the base apartments are all the same and—.”. As icebreakers went, it was possibly the worst one in the world and the best thing to happen because the archer was looking at you directly, almost relaxed with a hint of an actual smile on his face. “Never mind.”

Hanzo dropped his gaze again as you darted towards the door. That didn’t go as horribly as it might have, but he was at a complete loss as to what to do next. Truthfully, he needed a drink to settle his nerves, but that was probably a terrible idea. He shook to hear the small noises you made, and went to put his iron kettle back on the burner to bury them.

He could either make tea or use the water to heat sake. It was a win for him either way.

You came back out, your face flushing to a pink again as you met his eyes. He nodded slowly and turned away from the kettle. Out of habit, he bobbed another bow.

“Umm... thanks,” you burbled. “I, uhh... guess I’d better... be going.”

“Of course,” he nodded. His eyes followed you as you slid closer to the door and his next words burst out. “And feel free come back... if you—.”

“What?!”

“If you... want to know about m—about how the... follow-up investigation is going,” he offered in a rush. Then he flushed and dropped his gaze again. What a foolish thing to say! You were probably wondering now what on earth he had to offer Overwatch since apparently he could not even gather the intelligence to make a coherent sentence. “Forgive my impertinence.”

Yet, you did take a step closer, looking at him and then his oblong iron kettle. You did give him a hesitant half smile. “I.... Am I even allowed to know about the follow up?”

He gave a small smile. “I... If you... join the team—.” He stopped himself. “I...mean, it is your choice, of course.” He looked away again. “It is not important. I apologize.”

“No—I mean, I—.”

“I have distressed you again,” he murmured. “And when you wish to leave, too.” Slowly, he walked beside you to the front door. “I am sure you wish to rest.”

“Yeah... I’m beat,” you nodded.

“Very well,” he nodded, his demeanor suddenly crumpling into his unnaturally humble ways. “Are you safe—do you wish to call for security to escort you?”

“I’m good,” you whispered. “I think I know the way from here.”

“Of course.” He whisked the door open with a grace and deference that would put any butler to mortified shame. “Then I suppose this is... good evening?”

“Good bye,” you muttered as you stepped outside.

“Good... night,” he murmured.

The archer watched as you disappeared. What a fool he was, watching you as long as he did. He couldn’t even string together a sentence in front of you. Still, he could dream....


	16. Chapter 16

The next week you saw neither Shimada man. Not even in passing. There was nothing for a week. You even got through the pile of candy Genji had been steadily giving you. But nothing happened—not even a momentary passing in the hallways—that would give anyone the idea that you had ever met them.

The weeks after that, you noticed the rumors starting that there was going to be a raid on a Talon laboratory. No one knew a lot of the details, but the talk was interesting enough. The talk grew and grew and you noticed that the Shimada brothers and 76 were almost nowhere to be found.

The few times you saw the archer, he seemed permanently exhausted. He seemed to be... gray with weariness except for the purple shadows under his eyes. He was bent down and the pile of tablets and folders and stuff seemed to weigh a hundred pounds. The only thing he seemed to have any energy for was when he was dragging Genji away from you.

Which stopped only about 1% of the time the ninja managed to find you. He still had a never-ending supply of candy that he doled out as he kept talking about his brother. He would barely get out ‘hello’ before he’d have something to say about the archer and every mention of Hanzo’s name came with a sweet. Then he’d disappear again.

Suddenly, you realized that it had been more than a few days since you hadn’t seen either of them. You hustled through your work and your chores and all the things you had to do. It was as if you were trying to fill the time with work....

It was incredibly late some later night when you heard a knock at your door. You shook off the small blanket around your legs and climbed off your couch. Your movie binge and snacking had left you on the couch in a comfortable sprawl. Which meant that you actually heard the knock rather than slept through it.

Staggering up, you went to your door and half opened it. The archer slumped there, his eyes shell-shocked and wide and his skin white with weariness and ash. You opened the door more as he stared blankly at you, the quiver on his hip empty except one broken arrow and his bow was slung over his muscular shoulder.

“You are here,” he whispered hoarsely.

“Yeah... where else would I be at this hour?” you yawned.

He nodded, panting slightly. He wiped his cheek and a stripe of sweaty skin seemed to glow tan underneath the dust and dirt and ash. “Do you...? Forgive the intrusion, but... I wanted you to know—it was over.”

That piqued your interest—and shot a ton of adrenaline into your body—and you straightened your spine. He walked in at your gesture, but he took only a few shambling steps before he just collapsed to one knee. You let out an anxious whine and went to him—it would just figure that a hero of Overwatch would fall and break his knee or something, not on the battlefield, but on your front doorstep.

“You okay?” you whispered as he flinched at your voice. 

He looked up at you and nodded mutely. His panting breath heaved and seemed to shake his shoulders. You almost expected to see puffs of dust coming out of his lungs. “I am.... I am fine.”

You rushed around to get him a glass of water and to tug him towards your couch. He stumbled after you without protesting. He drank the cold water gratefully, murmuring a hoarse thanks. You had... a few leftover snacks at least—a couple of candies from Genji and a half bowl of yoghurt with cut up fruit and granola on top, a leftover half of a sandwich and some chips—and Hanzo looked at them with a singleminded and almost lustful gaze.

You brought him another glass of water that he practically pounced on. “You okay?”

He nodded again, lapping at the crisp hairs above his lip. “I ap-apologize for th-th-the late... late hour. W-w-we just got back.”

You nodded and sat down next to him. “Just got back?”

He nodded, his eyes fixed on your snacks. “The Talon laboratory is destroyed. Our techs are analyzing the hard drives now to be sure we can track the chemicals that we used and who sold them. Two canisters of the reagents were seized and are being denatured now. They were going to sell the doses to raise money for their schemes, but now we have captured two chemists, a lot of enforcers and... and I wanted you to know that it is... finally over.”

You shuddered and your eyes filled with tears you didn’t know what to do with. “Th-th-thank you.”

He shuddered in exhaustion. Here you were, so close, and he was so weak and tired he could barely move. He could eat a horse, too. But there was so much sweetness in just sitting here next to you. He could smell your light shampoo and some kind of soap after hours of ash and smoke and fire. He could feel your warmth after hours of the cramped and cold drop ship. He could hear your voice now after screams and shouts and the sterile voice of Athena over the comms. His feet curled slightly and there was padding and carpet to soothe him. He could hear only your soft breath and the hum of a fan going somewhere.

It was heaven on earth if there ever was such a thing.

You murmured again and he barely caught your gentle inquiry. He fumbled for a response again, his mind sinking into the scant comfort of the apartment. “I am well enough, koneko.”

You snorted as you looked at the battered man. He was almost covered with dust and soot and even then his bruises were still livid shades of purple and brown. His mighty hands shook lightly as he pushed a dirty lock of hair out of his face. “You look terrible.” He grunted and shook his head slightly. “Do you... want to get cleaned up a little?”

He did finally grin, his smile lopsided as you noticed a swelling on his jaw and his lower lip. “You are too kind, koneko.”

You shrugged and nudged his shoulder. “Eat something.”

He gaped at you, his smirk falling into surprise. “Nani?”

“Huh?”

“Are you... what are you saying?” He blinked with his eyes wide. “You are...?”

You stood up and went to your bathroom. A few moments later you had a warm washcloth and a small towel. You went back out, annoyed at the small drips. He stared at you, his eyes darting between the cloth and your face. “Here.”

He took the cloth with a fine tremor of his hands that he fought to control. It was beyond heaven to wipe the dust from his face. “My thanks.”

You stared at him, certain that there was more. The archer gave you back the washcloth. You took it and went to rinse it out, smiling as you saw the gray ash wash away in a swirl in your sink. It was a slow process, but you eventually got it cleaned out—somewhat.

When you got back, you saw him leaning on the couch, sound asleep. A soft snore echoed out and the bow fell from his grasp to hit the carpet almost soundlessly. He seemed almost ancient now, with his black hair a dull gray all over and every small crease of skin and cloth caked with dust.

Well, there wasn’t much to do, was there? You pulled out a spare sheet and took a pillow from your bed and crept to put them beside him. It was a testament to his state of exhaustion that he only stirred briefly, jerking and muttering something you didn’t quite catch. You didn’t know what else to do, so you left him there, locked your deadbolt, turned off everything but the dim light in the front closet and went to your own bed.

***************

An hour or so before dawn, you were shocked at hear a blood-curdling scream.

Every muscle stiffened and you grabbed the tiny pulse pistol from your bedside table and ran to the front room. In the dim light from the front closet, you saw the archer thrashing in the sheet wrapped around him and the pillow halfway across the room on the floor. He cried out again, panting heavily and saying things you didn’t quite understand. But you did hear—you could understand—the desperate tones and it made you almost weep.

“Hanzo!” you whispered cautiously. “Hanzo—wake up.”

Hanzo rolled in a violent way, his fists shooting out in wildly random directions. “No! You cannot!”

“Hanzo! Wake up!” you called a bit louder. You were not certain how to approach at all as he kicked your couch and thrashed so hard that the sheet wrapped tighter around his waist. He jerked again and you finally got close enough to brush his shoulder. “Come on—wake up.”

He gasped one more time and sat up with a violent string of curses. Sweat coated his body as his eyes popped open and he looked around in confusion. He blinked several times, shuddering violently as he pushed a loose tuft of hair behind his ear and looked around again.

He finally saw you and he staggered to his feet. He kicked the sheet aside and stumbled past the pillow to get to you. Immediately his hands came up to cup your cheeks. His eyes were wild as he seemed to look you over in desperation.

“Koneko,” he hissed. “You are not hurt?” He looked you over again. “You... you are well?”

“I’m fine—!”

He shrugged slightly and then kissed your forehead. His lips were rough—chapped—and warm as he kept kissing you. He murmured softly as his lips kept brushing your face. “Watashi no kichona. Anata wa zentaidesu—you are whole.” His shaking hands gripped your shoulders and his lips drifted from your cheek to your lips. “Anata wa anzendesu. Anata wa anzendesu—you are safe.” An elemental thrill went through you as his grip tightened and his lips pressed against yours even harder. “Anata wa anzendesu—kare wa anata o tsukamaemasen.”

He pulled back and his arms wrapped around you tightly, pushing your head against his shoulder. You coughed and felt the fine shakes and tremors running through his trembling muscles. Instinctively, you wriggled your arms free and wrapped them around him as well.

“Anata wa anzendesu—kare wa anata o tsukamaemasen,” he all but sobbed out. “I will keep you safe. You are safe—he will not get you.”

You made some kind of soft noise in return, holding him and patting his shuddering shoulders when he let you. “Of course, I’m safe. I’m right here. I wouldn’t—.”

“I will keep you safe always,” he murmured, kissing your hair frantically. “I will keep you safe from him.”

“Hanzo—I’m fine.”

He gave you a wild look and and with a groan swooped down to kiss you again. His hands gripped you and with a single move, he pulled you into his arm. Without pausing, he walked to your bedroom and laid you down on the bed.

There was a sudden heat in the room as his hands ghosted over your body. The moves were jerky and anxious as his hands scanned every limb, every finger brushing your unbroken skin in disbelief. Then he shakily stroked your stomach and up your sides.

With a groan he collapsed beside the bed, his hands gripping your mattress. “The Reaper did not get you. You are... you are whole.”

You rolled to one side, your hand touching his white knuckles. “Of course I’m fine.”

His voice shook almost like a child’s. “Every night—I see the Reaper take you. And every time he... he hurts you and—and I... I cannot stop it.”

You sucked in a nervous breath. So that’s what that was all about. “I’m fine,” you whispered sitting up. Hanzo gaped up at you. “See? Fit as a fiddle.”

It would never be exactly clear to you the precise moment that things tilted towards heat and passion. Hanzo looked up at you with naked adoration in his eyes, his hands shaking as he wrapped his arms around your waist. His head dipped and he nuzzled your soft belly like a wounded animal. He let out a soft hiss as your fingers through his long hair and you accidentally slid the golden cloth out of it. It fell almost unnoticed to the floor as his teeth gripped your loose top and tugged on the hem.

His hands slid past your hips to reach under your cloths and stroke your skin. You laid back as he pressed forward, feeling heat curl in your veins as he peeled the clothes off of you. As soon as your clothes were tossed aside with whispers of sound, he stood and almost ripped his own clothes to pieces as he tugged them off.

Immediately, he settled between your legs, his arms on each side as his mouth worked against your skin frantically. He peppered sliding kisses up and down your neck as more whispered Japanese poured out. He lapped at your neck, the sensitive skin over your collarbone and just below your ear.

You felt his fevered heat blooming in your core, along your arms and legs and every place he touched. You couldn’t help but rock up against him, your hips pushing upwards against the tightly muscled archer.

Hanzo groaned openly to feel your shaky surrender. His whole body was somehow chilled from the nightmares that had haunted his sleep, but everything flared like fireworks blasting into brilliant, red-hot sparks. His cock throbbed, pressed tightly between his belly and your soft curves.

In the hellish landscape of his nightmares, he had raced to catch up with Reaper. He saw the big man dragging you along like a bag of melons, explosions lighting up the world and thick billows of black, sparkling gas. He saw others dying, crumpling as he pressed on. The explosions shattered the bow in his hands as he tried to draw his weapon. And then he heard your terrified screams, your terrified moans as the Reaper tore at your clothes and the gas sucked into your body.

He broke from that nightmare to see your pale face as you stood over him. It was a relief to see you, but he could only brace himself as he expected to see you beaten or burned or some horrible fate. Every second, he was expecting to that he would see some disaster and every second he was grateful that you were still whole. He could only keep kissing and touching, praying that you were still unharmed—that this time he had reached you in time.

But you were returning his kisses and touches. You were whimpering as he cradled your breast and rubbed his thumb along your tight nipple. You let out a soft sigh when he lapped at the dusky colored skin. You pressed up again, crushing your softness against him.

He groaned as you thrust up again. “Koneko... my precious kitten—I will keep you safe from the Reaper.” You panted, delicate beads of sweat on your brow, and he took the breathless moment to tease your lips open. Ahh, the taste of your mouth was of clean mint and not smoke and explosions and it made him even more desperate. “You are safe and no one will hurt you.”

He pulled back slightly, groaning as your legs spread and gripped his body with your thighs. There was thick, hot slick on the tip of his cock and everything in him fought to push inside. It took every ounce of discipline to be gentle—to nibble your lips and earlobe and beg with his body and mouth and tongue—and then to plead with you, “Kirenia—beautiful—let me love you.”

You nodded again and again, gasping as he kept licking and lapping at your skin. He attacked that delicate skin just under your ear with soft kisses. His hands squeezed your breasts in a desperation that seemed to hover just barely on the right side of sanity. The archer teased and tormented you, his fingers stroking down to press that pulse between you legs. Then he slipped one finger inside, groaning as you did with the feeling of fullness.

He growled in his chest as you began thrusting on his fingers and driving them knuckle deep. It was better than his dreams—better even than the frantic fantasies he had played over and over—as you writhed underneath him. Drops of precum pearled and seemed to trickle down his aching cock and smear on your thighs. Nothing could make him shake so much as you.

He needed to taste you. His body kept throbbing and he pushed himself down and nuzzled your belly before pushing down again. Then that quivering font was right at his mouth. His fingers shook as he gently spread you more to lap at your pink core. It was even sweeter than he remembered now without the scent of that Rasutosuta. The honey-thick slick seemed everywhere, going over his mouth and on his cheeks. He thrust harder with his finger and curled his tongue over the swollen and tight bundle of nerves, curling it and delighting as your whine echoed in his ears.

Again and again, he kept licking and thrusting. And you kept up your whining and even gripped his hair. He couldn’t stop himself from thrusting slowly back and forth against your sheets. The slight wrinkles scraped his cock and the tightness of his balls, making him even more desperate to please you. He couldn’t bear his own loneliness and his emptiness—not a moment longer—and he pressed harder.

You yelled wildly, your hands tugging any part of him you could reach. Your nails scraped him and left trails of white hot pleasure-pain in his skin. Your hips pushed up harder and harder, and you were barely aware of the incoherent mumbling spilling out.

Hanzo closed his eyes and turned his head slightly, aware in every part of his being that you were almost incoherent. Sweetness coated his face and covered his fingers and it made him feel even more hot and out of control. Your begging was making him even more desperate, but a part of him needed to know you consented—with a clear mind.

He kissed your belly, the soft skin just under your navel. It made you shudder and then cry out as he pulled his fingers out. He stared at your face, waiting patiently until you looked down at him with confused desperation.

“Tell me, koneko,” he whispered in a shaky voice, “that you agree with me....” You yelped at him in frustration and pulled on him again. “Tell me you want this... as much as I do.”

You barely could speak. You croaked out, “I... I....”

He pulled up, his whole demeanor falling into sadness right there. He looked down sadly and whispered, “It is fine, koneko—if you do not—.”

“Yes!” you blurted out, tugging him again.

He suddenly laughed—a full melody of rich baritone joy—and his smile was megawatt brilliant. Then he went back down, his lips locking on your clit and putting two fumbling fingers into you. Your body went into spasms, bucking up against him. He was not stopping for even a moment to question you further. Your consent was worth more than gold, more than treasure and in that desperate moment, it was his greatest treasure. Relief sapped away every pain, rejuvenated every muscle and made every single thing sparkle.

It wasn’t because he was near trembling tears that you had not turned him away.

With a singleminded dedication that vibrated the very air around you, Hanzo drove his fingers inside you as hard as he dared. You gave him a grateful shout and thrust up harder, offering your sopping core up to his pleasure. With a growl, he tightened his lips, curled his fingers until he hit that part inside that made your voice shake with a howl.

Then your body spasmed uncontrollably. Both hands wrapped around his wrist in a death grip to hold him there as you whined in breathless pants. Your feet plowed into the soft mattress and you shook. Dizzying moments later, you glowed as you came down from your pleasure.

He pulled back carefully, tugging out of your grip with a devilish smile. You struggled to catch your breath as he carefully crawled up to kiss your mouth. It must have been the right thing because your arms wrapped up around his neck and nip his bottom lip. More and more and more, you kept licking and kissing his mouth. The archer groaned as you shifted and he felt the tip of his cock settle right there where he wanted.

You reached down as far as you could to tug him down. He stiffened slightly and you growled at him, “What are you waiting for? Christmas?”

He thrust forward in a sleek and easy move. “Not another moment, kichona.” He thrust again, groaning as the silky warm heaven inside you. You shuddered and he felt it from his cock to his bones. Then the hard stop as his hips met yours. “You are mine!”

The electricity shocked you as he rocked back and forth with surprising gentleness. One arm pressed into the mattress beside you and he slipped his hand between you. You barely could catch your breath before one rough finger scraped your tightly swollen clit. That made you groan and even tighten more as you felt fireworks in your blood shoot out through your body.

He smirked as you jerked again and curled up to grip him harder. It was a terrible and delightful task to force himself to keep the steady and even rhythm he had started. Everything in him kept begging to go faster, press harder. The dark side of his soul demanded that he drive forward as hard as he could, to hold you tight and mark you in any way he could to show the world that you were his. He tried squelching that part of himself, to stay gentle and calm despite the burning in his veins that flickered and scorched as if he breathed Rasutosuta instead of air.

He drifted a slow kiss down your neck. One tiny spot and he kissed it gently to try to mark the spot. He needed a small offering to his darker, demon self that still demanded a claim. Even if there was only the next moment, this night, he still needed to stake a claim.

Then your teeth clamped on him. His body surged forward as his pleasure glowed into flame and he hissed through clenched teeth to feel your teeth working on his skin. He shuddered and thrust harder to feel that bruise on flowering on his skin. You released your teeth only to suckle the aching spot and pull blood into it.

“Do you claim me?” he whimpered softly.

You shuddered at the pure need in his voice. There was no mistaking that he was begging on a naked and elemental level. But there was need in you, too, and you hissed again and nodded. His face twisted and tightened into lust and he surged forward again. He sped up, his toes digging into the sheets and his fingers shuddering right in the inferno between you.

Then he ripped back. You screamed in agony until he shoved his two fingers replaced his cock inside you. His lips locked on your nipple, teasing it with the tips of his teeth. Instantly, you bucked again as you hurtled towards that white hot edge. His couldn’t help grinning as you kept going, unmindful that his other hand had gripped his dribbling cock.

He swallowed a hasty breath as he switched nipples and kept up his frantic stroking. There was a shaky moment that he wondered if he had waited and wanted too long, that the raging storm inside was going to break before you had been satisfied. He approached that precipice, standing on the crumbling edge with you.

Then you fell apart and screamed his name.

It was too much to feel your climax and to know in his soul that this time was freely given. The cliff shattered beneath his feet and tossed him headfirst into his own heady high. His fist tightened and he felt everything slow down to a sensual, time-stop that filled him with fire. Sticky white seed shot over his fist and on your knee.

You were boneless and panting as the archer collapsed at your side on the bed. He groaned and rolled to face you. He was even more handsome with the flush to his cheeks and every muscle sinking into relaxation. He smiled at you and it was roguish with an inky slash of hair falling across his eyes.

You flushed and smiled at him, curling up slightly. The warm stickiness between your legs startled you and you half sat up in curiosity. He rolled a bit and followed your gaze. With a cute-grumpy snort, he nodded and gently stroked your shoulders. He whispered, “I... I apologize. I could not figure out.... Children are a responsibility and a huge undertaking when—. When we are... so new.”

You stared at him in shock, flushing dark red as you realized that he had thought ahead further than you. “I mean.... Wow—we, uh, are—yeah.”

Hanzo looked aside, a shadow of pain gritting his teeth and making his features settle not their usual bad-tempered mien, but then he looked up at you and it seemed that an unusual light of hope lit up his eyes. “It is... perhaps a shock to you. But could I—could we...?”

You stared at him in a bit of wide eyed shock. “What is it?”

He coughed anxiously and turned even more awkwardly red. “A... a shower? A wet cloth.”

You couldn’t help giggling, but your nod was genuine. He smiled and helped you stagger to your feet. You could see him drooping with exhaustion, but the moment you swayed slightly—your foot on top of something and unbalanced—his arms were around you. In a moment more, he held you in his arms wrapped in the bedsheet and swept you into the bathroom. Deftly, he set you down on the sink counter and then he spun around to run water in the tub. As you watched, he twitched the knobs back and forth and rolled his arm so that the stream of water hit his more sensitive inner wrist. Finally he nodded and began a thorough, systematic search of your drawers and cabinets until he had towels, soap and a small bath bomb that someone had given you for your last birthday.

He was so gentle lifting you up and setting your feet into the warm water, and holding the sheet up as a modest screen until you sat down. When you did finally sit down, he rolled a small hand towel and slid it behind your head. You were going to protest, but he took a larger towel and laid it over your body. With a cup, he poured the warm water over the towel and sent warm fingers of water going down your body. He then set out the bath bomb and a large, dry towel well within your reach.

“Are you feeling better?” he asked solicitously. Hanzo handed you the bar of soap and paused to pour another tingling cup of warmth over your body. “Please—take all the time you need. You are safe and I will protect you from harm.”

With that, he stood and left the bathroom. In a moment, you heard your kitchen sink running and some splashing. As you lounged about, occasionally dragging the washcloth along your skin, you even heard some soft singing with an exotic lilt. Then more splashing and more water running as the bath bomb bobbed and fizzled between your feet. As you staggered up to rinse off in the shower, you heard him rustling around in the bedroom.

When you got out and dried off, you found him cleaned up and dressed—his pants on at least—in your bedroom. A cup of something hot steamed on your bedside table and your last set of clean sheets were on the bed with both pillows fluffed and the sheets turned down.

He smirked at your look of surprise and brought you a set of worn thin sweats. “I did not know what else to make you feel more at ease.”

You saw the dark rings under his eyes and sighed, “You must be exhausted.” He only shrugged slightly. “Can’t we sleep in a bit longer?”

He smiled and nodded, “Very well. I will make the necessary calls.” Before you could react, he was calling the sick/absent line and rattling off that you and he weren’t in today. “As you wish, watashi no ojo.”

“Wa-ta-...what?”

He bowed low with a warm smile. “My princess.”

You nodded wearily, and went gratefully to the bed. You couldn’t remember the last person who tucked you in like this, but you were fairly sure none had been so careful, so mindful of your comfort. He went through your apartment then, checking the locks and windows, drawing the curtains and blinds closed so that the starting day was a dim twilight. Then he came in again with a tall glass of ice water.

You gave him a cuddly and warm smile. But instead of climbing back on the bed next to you, he knelt on the floor, to stare out the bedroom door. You smiled and whispered, “Aren’t you coming to bed?”

He glanced at you in obvious surprise. “You... would have me?”

You nodded and he looked warily at the doorway again. “If I am vigilant, he will not hurt you.” His eyes drifted pointedly to the air conditioning vents in your walls and ceiling. “The Reaper is a wily foe who could appear anywhere, at any time.” He straightened and resumed his kneeling stare. “I cannot rest if you are unprotected.”

You growled and tossed back and forth. Finally you snatched the pillow and threw it at him. He rocked as it hit his head. “Come to bed, Hanzo.”

“Nani?!” At your blank stare, he snapped, “What?”

“Come to bed.” You stuck out your tongue at him. “It’s... lonely.” That only made him smirk and keep staring at the main room. “Haven’t you heard it’s bad manners to fuck and not sleep in the bed afterwards?”

That made another of those baritone laughs roll out. He was laughing so hard that he started to hold his sides. Tears started to well up in his eyes. “You think that—.... You really tried—. You insult my manners to get your way, koneko?” He took in a noisy breath, gasping for air. “You insult my honor?”

“Yeah, well come to bed,” you grumbled. “I’m tired.”

“I will guard you—.”

“Can’t you guard me better closer to me?”

He chuckled again. For a moment, it seemed like he wasn’t listening—damn stubborn man—but then he let out a laugh again, got your pillow and stood up. “You wound me, koneko. I do not know whether to kiss you or... anything.”

“Sleep,” you yawned.

“As you wish, princess,” he murmured, going to the other side of the bed and setting the pillow down again. His hands went to the laces at his waist and then he looked up at you. With a blush, he whispered, “I... sleep... ahh... nude.”

You rolled your eyes. It wasn’t like you both hadn’t been naked just a bit before. Still, he was looking torn between the bed and his clothing. “Just get comfortable and let’s sleep.”

He turned his back to you to pull of his pants and dove under the covers. Rolling, he looked at you seriously and asked, “Is this uncomfortable for you? Say the word, and—.”

“Sleep,” you groaned. You snuggled closer. “I’ve seen you. You’ve seen me. We need to sleep.”

“As you wish, ojo.”


	17. Chapter 17

Things were not all smooth sailing as you and Hanzo began to see each other. You both were busy and your schedules occasionally made seeing each other difficult. But gradually things got easier. You could find things in common, things to do. He began teaching you archery and you were the notably sole person he allowed to use his huge bow. You began teaching him cooking, and he enjoyed eating whatever you fixed. You both got a kit on origami and spent one hilarious weekend struggling through the instructions to make cranes and flowers and little hats. You went for walks and strayed into the garden where you watched the sundown.

But it was a comfort to have his bulky presence in the evenings. It was nice to have him watching your back on missions and waiting for you when you left on a mission without him. He looked for you everywhere when he came back from missions, plowing through the crowd until he could find you and then whisking you away.

Then came that night, some eight months after the first night that you were both together, he arranged to meet you in the garden just at sunset. He asked for you to wear something nice—but didn’t say exactly what he meant by that—and to clear your calendar for the next day or two. You finally decided to get cleaned up and slide on a loose dress and some fun sandals. Despite the several warm days that had brought a taste of spring, it was still chilly some evenings, so you took out your favorite large silk shawl as well. Hanzo had somehow come up with it—a large piece of sky blue silk with clouds embroidered in white silk thread with a long and sinuous dragon in gold thread winding around them. Gold beads adorned the scales and a mix of powder blue and golden fringes ran along the edges. It was a surprisingly costly gift and amazingly the exact right thing because it was just warm enough in chilly times and very light in hot weather.

You made your way to the garden and found Genji lurking in the hallways. “Hey, Genji.”

He had his faceplate off and gave you a boyish grin. “Hey—he’s waiting for you.”

“Oh! Ahh... really?”

He shrugged and his smile widened. “I’m here to be sure you are not interrupted.” He made a playful show of stepping back and looking you up and down. “You look fabulous! He’s going to be amazed.” He shook your hand and nodded. “And be sure—. Uhh... you know what? Never mind. I didn’t say anything. Congratulations and happiness to you both and... and... and I hope you both have a good time and....”

You frowned slightly at his perplexing words and decided that he meant well even if he was going on and on. “Umm... thanks?” He was grinning so slyly that you couldn’t help but ask, “So what’s going on?”

“Nothing!” He pulled out a small red oval doll thing with a white face, black painted eyebrows, a red bow shaped mouth and wide red outlines for eyes. The red paint underneath the face was liberally decorated with gold paint with bold black kanji characters on the stomach. “This is a Daruma doll. It is for good luck and for wishes. Make a wish and paint the first eye black. When it comes true, you paint the other eye. Good luck always!”

You giggled, “Thanks!”

He nodded and waved down the hallway to the garden door. “Knock him dead, tiger!”

You shook your head in amusement. Trust Genji to be weird, huh? Still, you stared at the little doll. Maybe it would bring you luck—especially on keeping people out of the garden while you and Hanzo were having some time together.

The first look at the garden took your breath away.

There were candlelit paper lanterns everywhere creating intimate pools of light and casting a warm glow to the shadows. The largest cherry tree had been decorated with what had to be thousands of tiny fairy lights among the tiny cherry blossom buds and a smattering of early blooms that looked a little like unexpected popcorn. Most of the blossoms hadn’t bloomed just yet, but any day now they would burst into a glorious froth of pink petals. But there were still drooping lines of color down to the ground in the form of what must be hundreds of paper paper cranes strung on threads and then tied to overhead branches to form a soft sort of canopy.

Underneath this rustling canopy was a large, thick foam mat. Then there were two of Hanzo’s big floor pillows on that, along with yet another lantern and a short camp table with his iron teapot and two cups, along with his black lacquered bento box and a shallow bowl filled with oranges and brightly wrapped candies.

Hanzo himself was there in what you could obviously see was a formal kimono—the traditional Japanese equivalent of a tuxedo—and a haori coat of navy blue that seemed electric compared to the black of his clothing. The only other spot of color was a gold obi that matched the cloth tying his hair up. He was kneeling on one of the floor pillows, but despite all of the natural beauty of the garden, his eyes were on you.

You walked forward, not even aware that you were clutching the doll in your fist. Hanzo waved at you welcomingly. He leaned forward and tapped the other pillow. You did dart forward then, anxious and happy to be in the cozy nook he had created.

He waited until you had scampered inside, kneeling facing him. Then he gave you a low bow from his hips, making you smile that he was obviously showing you great respect. So, you bowed back with a giggle.

He saw the Daruma doll in your hand and smiled. “I see that was what Genji was trying so hard to hide from me.”

You looked at it and shrugged anxiously. “It’s nothing.”

Before you could toss it away, though, he pulled out a second one. You smiled little red charm in his hand with one eye filled in. “So is it winking at me?”

He smirked and put it in the table. “Not quite.” With his usual slow and solemn grace, he poured tea into the two cups. “Will you have tea with me?”

You nodded and accepted the fragrantly steaming cup. He raised his in toast and you did the same. For a moment, all that existed was the small globe of light and the tea. He finished his and set the cup down.

His face turned deadly serious as he looked up to you. “Will you trust me?” You looked perplexed, but nodded and set your cup down as well. “Have I earned your trust that I can show you something special? That you will trust me to keep you safe?”

“Of course, Hanzo.”

He stared at you for a moment longer, deep in thought, but then gave you a slow smile. “Then, I will show the secret of the Shimada.”

He raised the long sleeves of his haori and kimono and showed you the exquisite tattoo. With a secretive smile, he gave you a solemn nod. His eyes seemed to fade into a hectic blue and you were started to see a sharp, thin shadow in them that seemed to give them a reptilian slash. Then the outline of the dragons glowed with that electric blue, and then rise off his skin. The outline thickened from a spiderweb thread like line to the width of a pencil line. Then it simply unwound from his skin like a snake to drop to the thick mat with a padded thump.

The dragons stared at you for a moment as their outlines filled in with a blue luminance. Then they looked up at him. He smiled and waggled his finger like he was scolding a child, “Do not be rude. Speak so that she can hear you as well.”

They looked up at you again with open curiosity. One of them nuzzled the other, brushing aside the mane of his companion and cupping a clawed paw to whisper something. The other one nodded and then whispered back with the same childish gesture. Finally they both nodded.

If the wind in the mountains had a voice as it circled a mountain cabin and snowy forests, that was the sound in your head. It was deep and long and moaning and peaceful and whispering. “You are the mate to our master?”

You stared at them and finally nodded.

The two dragons looked at you and then turned back to Hanzo. Again, there was a rushing sound of old forests in the wind and the echoing of deep caverns. “She has the sky and wind and honor in her heart.” They spread out in front of you protectively. “What do you offer?”

Hanzo bowed again, low and humbly. “I offer my strength, my protection. I offer the strength of my bow and the speed of my arrows.”

The one of your right nodded, but the left on looked over its shoulder back at you. It looked back at you and then scowled at the archer. “What do you offer for a woman of sky and wind and honor?”

Hanzo bowed low again. “I offer my strength of will. I offer my... my honor. I offer my respect and faithfulness.” Still the dragon was not convinced. “I offer my fortune—that which I have now—and that which I will have.” Both dragons nodded slowly, lowering themselves around you. He nodded at them solemnly and then at you. “I offer my name.”

The dragons looked at him and then you. “That is a worthy bride price for a woman of sky and wind and honor.”

Hanzo grinned up at you. He put a quick finger to his lips as the dragons nodded towards each other. Finally the one on your left raised up on its back legs and its mane flared out as if it was a cobra. “I am Taisetsuna Meiyo—I am Treasured Honor. I accept the Scion of the Shimada as mate and become the binding.” Its eyes flickered back to you. “Do you accept the union of lightning and arrows and dragon and wind and sky?”

You blinked in confusion for a moment and then realized it was a question directed at you. “Umm...?” You thought for a moment and then understood what was being asked of you. As elaborate proposals went, this certainly took the cake. “Yes—I do!”

The dragon nodded. “The offer has been made and accepted. From this, new life and new dragons can be born.” It floated up like the dragon on your shawl, weaving in the air in a smoky way. Again came the sound of old trees. “I am the binding, joining these two so that the bond between man and dragon can live on.”

Hanzo gave you a whisper that was barely more substantial than the wispy dragon floating above you. “A moment’s courage and it is done. Courage, koneko. Have courage.”

The wispy form settled over your left arm. You saw the dragon wink at you and then wrap around your arm. There was a stinging, as if your arm had just fallen asleep for an instant and had pins and needles. Then colors bloomed up your arm to your shoulder and you knew the dragon was settled onto you, into you.

Hanzo smiled and poured more tea for you. Then he moved the bento box and the bowl of oranges between the two of you. “For the moment, simply sit and have some tea.” You took the teacup and smiled at him. “Enjoy the night air as you... adjust to the dragon.”

Your first sniff was almost ecstasy. The scent was so much different now. You could practically smell the fragrance blooming, getting stronger in the water. You looked cautiously around and the night had changed into something altogether new and thrilling. The night sounds were strange harmonies that suddenly had new meanings. You heard a simple cricket’s cry and knew instinctively it was with its young.

The soft moan of whistling wind whistled inside your ear—far deeper than if someone had actually spoken. It wasn’t in your ear, it was in your head. No words that you could tell, but instead impressions. The grasses were waving and you knew the shapes of the waves without seeing them. You looked at the stars and they suddenly gave you the feeling of having names, identities and personalities as if they were characters in a long and ancient book that you felt you knew. The wind was caressing, telling you that you both were alone in the garden.

Hanzo sat the teacup down and the soft clatter brought your attention to him. There was a sudden change to him, too. He had an aurora around him, softly waving shadows that gave him the appearance of having a dragon’s mane. His eyes were still the color of warm chocolate but the whites were faintly glowing blue. His voice was the same, but different—a richer timber that echoed with his dragon’s voice and a soft echo of whistling wind.

“Koneko—.” He stopped himself and grinned. “I suppose I should say, ‘kakedashi’.” You knew he meant ‘fledgeling’, as a young dragon. It wasn’t clear how you knew that, but it was still clear. “Kakedashi, it will become more natural. For now, we will eat and enjoy the night and you will see it all as I do.”

The food was simple—hand rolls and sushi that made your mind picture the exact place in the sea it had loved most, dumplings that seemed amazing because you could name almost every ingredient, rice, some dark chocolate dipped cherries, a pastry in the shape of a smiling fish, and yellow pickles. You picked up a sweet-sour pickle with the set of chopsticks Hanzo gave you and you knew as soon as you put it in your mouth that it was Hanzo’s mother’s recipe and her name was Mariko.

He only nodded. “It was a special occasion when my mother made pickles and I would always go watch because whoever helped her would get a small jar for themselves. I always woke up early and would rush to the kitchen so that I could get my own.”

Hanzo smiled as you did, enjoying the sweet and sour and slightly salty taste. Each bite was full of meaning. Just as soon as everything would become overwhelming, he would give you more tea, a bite of rice with just a bit of seasoning, allowing you to feel more grounded. It was a lovely meal of bitter and sweet and sour and salty.

He smirked as you nodded at him. “Are you ready for an adventure?” At your nod, he moved the dishes aside and you joined left hands. How interesting that your tattoos matched so perfectly and holding hands like this made them appear to wrap around both your arms that it appeared to be a long design twining around both of you. “Are you ready to release your dragon?”

There was a rise of joy in you—obviously it wanted to play. You both stood and raised your arms and both dragons drifted off in their playful, smoky way and becoming more outlines, then smoky forms and then glowing bodies. Immediately, they began scampering around to play. You smirked at him knowingly as they went darting to the fountain and you both chuckled to hear soft splashing.

Strong and steady arms helped you to your feet. You both walked to the fountain, understanding that the dragons were occasionally like small children that needed to be watched. And sure enough, they were playing in the water and spitting out streams of water into glistening arcs.

The dragons kept coiling and swirling in and out. Hanzo sighed, pulling off his haori and dropping it over your shoulders. “Do not be surprised if you feel a bit of chill when they do this. It is a bit of feedback from them.”

“So you and Genji feel this all the time?”

“We feel what our dragons feel. You will have a sense of me, what I am doing and if I am injured, because our dragons are joined. I will same of you and will be more alert and able to come to your aid.” He shrugged. “You will also know of other dragons and... other creatures. You will see them and know them for what they are.”

You cocked your head curiously. “What of Genji?”

“You will see his dragon, and be able to turn it from hurting you.”

“He has only one?”

Hanzo paused thoughtfully. “He has one now.” His mouth cocked into a grin. “And you will find that the esteemed Dr. Ziegler has a dragon now as well. There is a reason she wears the long sleeved, winged uniform so much.” You both grinned in understanding. “She is the foremost expert on Genji’s cybernetics and their various systems and tweaks and upgrades. If they were to announce their union publicly, then she could not treat him because medical personnel cannot treat relatives unless it is an unavoidable emergency.” He shrugged slightly. “It would ultimately hurt him to lose her expertise.”

You nodded slowly and watched the dragons in awe. Your dragon—somehow you knew it was Hanzo’s despite them being almost twins—twisted up and froze at it looked at you. It smacked its face and went darting off to the other side of the fountain. There it dug into a thick tuft of grass and came galloping back up. Your dragon gave a coo and hooted at its brother.

Hanzo took the the small thing that the dragon gave him and then smiled at them. “We will go sit down again.” They paused as they considered his words and then began splashing water like children. He led you back to the little seating area, helping you kneel again. “More tea?”

He gave you the last of the tea and then took both Daruma and set them on the table. “These are good luck and will grant a wish.” He picked up the winking one that had one eye filled. Taking a small pen out from some fold in his clothing, he filled in the other eye and then set it down again carefully. “I have had my wish fulfilled.

“But we could not leave this done incorrectly. You and I are bound together as dragons count things, but other will not understand or respect that.” He opened his fist and showed you a gold ring with a brilliant diamond in the dragon shaped setting. “And I would be honored if you would marry me and show the world that... that we are—you are—.”

“I do,” you whispered as he slid it onto your finger.

And of course, Genji was laughing and hooting as you both came in, carrying the pillows and dirty dishes. He didn’t stop laughing as he went in and rolled up the mat and untangled the strings of cranes. As he drug the rolled up mat back inside, he cackled, “Just remember that I brought the two of you together. And be sure to invite me to the wedding.”

He didn’t stop talking as you kept cleaning up the garden. That he knew you were both were destined for each other. That he could see your dragon and you obviously were a good fit. That your dragon was a silly thing. That your ring was beautiful. You were honestly tired of his nonsense by the time everything was put away.

And he kept it up. Constant talking and chuckles and jokes. Little pranks like moving your notebooks from room to room as you tried to plan a wedding that blended your traditions with Hanzo’s. He tried to everyone that he was a master matchmaker, despite what you and Hanzo said. Even his dragon’s aura rolled its eyes as Genji kept being a bratty little brother.

But then at the wedding, when he raised his glass, you were touched to hear, “Here we are, to celebrate the one woman in the universe who has the patience to deal with my big brother. I thought they never would finally talk to each other like normal people. It is good that I was there to help them get together, huh?” Everyone laughed at that. “They have been perfect for each other since they first met and I am proud to have a sister to keep him straight and who knows? Maybe he will actually smile in public—wouldn’t that be something to see?

“She is perfect for you. Someone that makes things better just by being there. She is smart and funny and strong, inside and out. To be honest, she’s probably too good for you, anija. So, don’t go killing her, huh?” Everyone laughed again, making Hanzo turn red. Genji seemed to not notice his brother’s discomfort and simply tilted his glass up again. “Here’s to the best things in life—love, laughter and family.”


End file.
